


Within All My Years of Wandering

by rlw0810



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: A whole mess of Norse mythology, Adventure, Developing Relationship, Epic Bromance, F/M, Fluff, Horror, Humor, Loki Does What He Wants, Magic, Magical Artifacts, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Slow Burn, Smut, The Asgardian Courting Cat from Hell, The avengers are bored, The men of Asgard are all giant trolls, There is a love story in here somewhere, Thor Is Not Stupid, Violence, WinterShock - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-05-20 04:21:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5991532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rlw0810/pseuds/rlw0810
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loyalty, it would seem, was Darcy's downfall. The hoops she always seemed to find herself jumping through for her friends were progressively getting weirder and weirder as the years went by. Darcy Lewis had a pretty decent short-term future planned out, thankyouverymuch. Work for SHIELD, eat a doughnut, possibly date that one metal-armed super-soldier she'd been eyeing. It absolutely did not include going on some ridiculous mission for some equally ridiculous artifact with the God of Mischief. However, life had other plans...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leftennant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftennant/gifts).



> Hello there friends!  
> So... this was a long time coming that's for sure. :)  
> I have been working with this idea for what seems like a century!  
> Thank goodness for Leftennant, who listens to me while I whine and cry about literally everything under the sun. I really could not have done this without her. <3  
> Also a huge thanks to Queenspuppet, CinnaAtHeart, and Ladymariianna! They also are basically goddesses at #dealing with me.  
> Hope you all enjoy!

Darcy let out a snarl of eloquent curses as she stumbled, flailed, and tripped unceremoniously into a gaping hole in the ground. Fucking Asgard and their fucking weird geography, she thought as she lay there motionless in the dirt. Face down, she groaned, wondering why for the love of Frigga she had pledged herself to this damn quest. 

She smothered the thought, though, and let out a lengthy sigh before she rolled over and up into a sitting position. Mustering the last bit of energy she had, Darcy pulled herself sluggishly out of the hole, boots only slipping twice before she finally cleared the damned hole. Looking back once she was a safe distance and perched in dry grass, she winced. Darcy fingered the torn gash in her sleeve, dots of blood peaking through the threads. She groaned and cursed Loki and any other God who was listening, flopping onto her back to get a better look at the sky and the planetoide satellites that Loki had taught her to read. At least the God of Mischief was good for something, she mused. 

“Mani is there” she hummed to herself, the crushed moon and its pieces orbiting close to Asgard, large and looming and dipping over the horizon. Darcy squinted in the opposite direction then, locating Asgard’s smaller but still whole moon, Skoll. “So... not far, more South...” 

The petite brunette hauled herself to her feet then slowly, brushing off her once mostly black outfit that was now covered in a sheen of red clay. Her muscles protested, the soreness in her left calf screaming at her nerve endings for a rest, but she trekked on anyways. Damn, she was thirsty. She wanted a nap more than she wanted water, though. 

Once again, Darcy had suffered through another unsuccessful night of sleep due to Asgard’s bizarre as shit... everything. She had attempted to sleep most of the night prior at the mouth of a small cave, which Loki had instructed to her to specifically not do. But did Darcy Lewis listen, ever? No. So halfway through the night a very angry, very nocturnal, winged, crackly skinned something crawled towards her puffing hot, yellow-tinged breath at her. Needless to say, Darcy had not stuck around and spent the rest of her night bobbing behind a large rock in a river a few miles away.

Another loud groan escaped her chapped lips as Darcy tripped and stumbled, but she pressed on. If she had read the skies correctly she would make it to her destination by dawn, and he would hopefully be there, waiting. Loki, at least as of late, had been uncharacteristically patient.

He once had explained it to her, that he being a God had lived centuries already, and had a vast expanse of centuries to go. As such, he could afford to linger around waiting for her to “ungracefully amble into sight”. So maybe Darcy was behind schedule, but really, she had only been on Asgard a little over a year, so it was sort of expected that she would be more than a little lost. Not that she would admit that. Hell no. When she finally met up with Loki again she would dramatically flip her chocolate curls at him and tell him she navigated flawlessly, that it was only a small ditch that just happened to open up beneath her boots that put her behind schedule. She could see those bright green eyes of his rolling back at her, as they had so many times before. 

Darcy smiled to herself, feeling the corners of her lips crack further. She let her mind wander back, so much had happened in the last year after all. 

So much had happened in the time that had passed since that fateful Fall day that Thor had landed Jane and Darcy on the other end of the Bifrost. Loki had artfully slipped away when Odin had awoken from Odinsleep, re-appearing to reap his punishment once again.


	2. Much A'do About A Ceremonial Urn

Darcy had never intended to get involved on a quest with Thor’s questionably motivated brother. Last spring Darcy had been tailing Jane around Asgard. Then a chance encounter with Loki in one of the palace libraries had changed everything. Okay, so that’s not exactly true. It was a chance encounter with Loki, and Darcy calling Odin an ass in the throne room, but that was seriously not her fault. 

From that point on until Spring, Asgard found Darcy tailing Jane around happily chirping in her ear, or reading in silence with Loki in the vast libraries of the palace. Neither women asked where Thor was keeping himself most days, the entire point of going off world was for Thor to take the throne of Asgard, finally, and to make Jane queen. Jane swore up and down that she hadn’t really anticipated it taking quite this long, but Darcy only laughed, calling Odin a stubborn ass. Of course it would take nearly two Asgardian seasons, Thor had stipulations to the crown that he had informed them about before their departure from Midgard. Stipulations that Odin wouldn’t be too keen on. 

Finally, Odin agreed. However, he had his own thoughts on the matter. The King of Asgard had readily agreed to Jane Foster ruling next to his son, knowing how much Jane meant to Thor, and he to her, Odin could hardly say no. However, Thor wanted to be able to protect Midgard as well, reasoning that his brother would rule Argard each and every time he was on world. Odin decreed that this would be so, if only Loki could first prove himself worthy. 

Apparently Darcy Lewis also fell into the category of “in need of proof on worthiness” as well, because that’s what Odin had decided of her fate after her little outburst in the throne room.  
Needless to say, Odin was not amused. 

However, Jane had asked, begged really, that Darcy also be granted permission to move between Midgard and Asgard freely, because Jane couldn’t fathom the idea of living without both her main squeeze and her soul sister from another mister, as Darcy had called herself. 

After careful, and pretty damn crafty, consideration on the part of Odin, it was decided that perhaps Loki and Darcy could help each other. He made this proclamation with a steely glint in his one good eye, and what Darcy could only call a condescending smirk.

Now Darcy loved a good challenge. But mostly she just to wipe that damn disapproving look of Odin’s face. No wonder Loki had emotional shortcomings, Darcy had once noted while Loki was trying to teach her to chart the skies. He had only hummed in agreement at the comment, turning her back to the heavens to refocus her ever-wandering mind. 

Darcy had thrown herself wholeheartedly into this. And yet, challenge or not, this stupid quest that she had pledged herself to was fast becoming the death of her. She was tired and worn, aching from head to toe on her best days, barely dragging her limping ass on her worst, but even still Darcy was determined to finish for her own sake. She thought she would miss her labs and her fancy StarkTech, mortal music and junk food, but it had been almost a year since she had seen home now and instead of whining about it like she was sure Odin thought she would, she was pressing on through an Asgardian forest in the middle of Asgard’s most brutal summer because Odin’s only good eye be damned she was going to fucking finish this shit and be a warrior of Asgard yet. 

For years after New Mexico, London, New York, Skokova, Darcy trailed Jane unpaid and then paid, with no end goal in mind. She was always just Darcy Lewis, happy Darcy, considerate Darcy, loving Darcy. A bigger part of her was always searching for more. Lost in the sea of Avengers and agents, she only ever found fragments of the woman she wanted to become, fleeting moments where she was whole and proud of herself and they were few and far between. More often than not, she was still just Darcy. 

And now, she wasn’t just Darcy. She felt the familiar sense of pride swell up in her chest. Darcy was doing something so much bigger than herself now. Her mind wandered back to the incredibly simple way her life was almost a year ago. How strange it was to think about just how much had changed, and so much that hadn’t. 

 

\----- 

_“Two am is for sleep, sleep or sex! Right FRIDAY?” Darcy asked the facility A.I. after she scowled at her watch, wrenching it off her wrist and tossing it with a loud thunk on her Stark issued glass desk. The man’s affinity for glass was atrocious. Glass breaks, more often than not. And for the OCD mess that was Tony Stark, it’s no wonder he had a million plus bots roaming the halls with rags and windex._

_“Sir seems to think that any time of day is the time for scientific discovering. Sir also has similar thoughts on the times in which appropriate for fornification” the A.I. explained to her._

_Darcy snorted. “Figures as much.” She leaned back in her desk chair, stretching her arms above her head. ”FRIDAY, anyone still awake?”_

_“Yes, Miss Lewis,” FRIDAY confirmed. “The boss is in private robotics lab. There are also twelve technicians in the weapons lab, and Agent Barnes is in the residential corridor.”_

_Suddenly Darcy’s attention was piqued. Her interactions with the Avenger’s were few and far between over the past few years, but she still adored them for their own personal merits. The spies, for instance, were incredibly friendly with her. Darcy initially took to them first because they weren’t exactly super. They were intimidating as hell when she ran into them in the kitchen. Literally running into them, in fact. The first time she’d met Clint, he’d practically knocked her over. Natasha was quick to apologize for him, smacking Hawkeye in the head, and demanding he buy “Miss Lewis” a cup of coffee. Darcy was amused and simultaneously alarmed that the Black Widow knew her by name, but mostly amused._

_They were excellent friends from then on. After that initial interaction, she found some small amount of common ground with all of them. The sciencey types like Bruce and Tony were easy, but Steve and Bucky? They tended to keep to themselves. Darcy found this highly disappointing, because seriously, they were the hottest specimens of mancake in the whole damn building._

_She’d made minor in-roads with Bucky lately, though. Twice during one of Hill’s boring-ass meetings she’d gotten him to laugh with sarcastic commentary muttered under her breath, and once she’d even managed to talk him into splitting a bag of contraband peanut m &ms with her. _

_“Did you say Barnes, Friday-darling?”_

_“Sergeant Barnes, yes, Miss Lewis” she was informed._

_“Friday?”_

_“Yes, Ms, Lewis?”_

_“Ask Bucky-boy if he’s interested in being eye-candy for the next hour or so. Tell him I said it will be virtually painless, but if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll bring me a cup of coffee.”_

_When she didn’t receive a message back from him via Friday, Darcy tried not to feel too disappointed. It wasn’t like they really knew each other that well. He probably found the invitation amusing, but had better things to do. Still...a girl could hope._

_As the minutes ticked by with no hot super soldier joining her with coffee, she gave a mental shrug, and went back to loading a new playlist for Jane, making sure to include her favorites. She knew Jane wouldn’t appreciate it but whatever. At least she could say she tried, and that’s what counts right?_

_Bleh. Who was she kidding? Jane wouldn’t notice. But at least Darcy would have something to listen to when they worked, besides machines beeping and pop tarts crunching._

_Nearly twenty minutes later the electric doors whirred to life, and Darcy nearly hit the ceiling when Bucky strolled through. He watched her with an inscrutable expression as he crossed the lab to her desk, setting a cup of coffee on her desk before dropping into the seat directly across from her._

_“What are you still doing awake, Agent Lewis?” Bucky asked._

_She noted it looked like he was dressed for the day, like he hadn’t managed to get some shut eye yet. “Could ask you the same question.”_

_“Well, I was on my way to bed, when Friday informed me that my presence was required as your...how did you word it? Eye candy?” He raised both eyebrows at her. “How’s your coffee?”_

_Darcy was still recovering from her shock at Bucky showing up, but there was no way in hell she was letting him know that. With studied nonchalance, she picked up the styrofoam cup, and took a sip. It was fucking delicious. He’d even used the real cream that she kept hidden behind the giant bottle of Heinz 57 on the bottom shelf, and how the hell did he know how she took her coffee anyway?_

_She sat back, and eyed him over the rim of her cup. “The coffee is good. I didn’t think you’d actually show up but since you’re here, sit back and look pretty while I put the finishing touches on the ‘Science Till You Die’ playlist. Mkay?” Darcy waved at the screen in front of her before turning her attention back to it. “Which Jane will ignore, but whatever. I swear to god, the last time I walked in here she was listening to static on the radio, or as she likes to call it, ‘Cosmic background noise.’ She’d been listening to it for six hours. Sometimes I wonder if Erik was the crazy one, or Jane is just better at hiding it. But I certainly don’t find static comforting when I work!”_

_This statement rewarded her with a small tic at the left side of his mouth, an echo of a half-smile that she relished. One small step for man, she thought, turning back to the keyboard._

_They stayed like this for a while, Darcy typing away while Bucky sat, unmoving, staring at her with hard trained eyes she had learned to ignore. He never meant to be menacing with her, why would he? Darcy Lewis was harmless in the Winter Soldier's eyes, probably. It was just his usual look._

_“When will you be finished?” his voice interrupted her ongoing mental monologue._

_Darcy sighed softly. “About now. You can go, if you’re tired. I was really just kidding. I’m sorry if I offended or whatever..”_

_Bucky cocked his head at her, a little to the left, kind of like a puppy when they’re trying to comprehend things. His eyes seemed to soften in that instance, harsh lines of stress smoothing away. “You don’t have to be sorry for nothin’, pretty dame asks for company and she’ll receive it.”_

_Her hands fluttered, faltering on the keys. “Dame, really Gramps? You wanna call me a call girl next, since you know.. I called ya here”._

_Her reaction must have prompted something in his brain to snap to full attention because suddenly his blue eyes were wide, frantic, dusted with fear. “Didn’t mean it like that! Shit, sorry!”. He was halfway standing but she was somehow faster, standing in front of him with her small hands on his broad shoulders, coaxing him back into his chair._

_“Whoa, dude. No need to panic,” she smiled sweetly, “I mean sheesh. I was only kidding. We good?”_

_Bucky stared up at her mutely for what seemed like forever and a day before giving her a small nod._

_“Listen, I know you’ve made leaps and bounds as far as progress is concerned from when you got your eggs all scrambled.” She made a point to poke one finger at his forehead lightly, testing to see if he would shy away. He didn’t. “But I still hear through the proverbial grapevine that you’re a little quick to jump to the conclusions and the ‘I’m sorry’s’ still so I’ll just say it now, don’t even bother with me.” Darcy smiled again, giving his cheek a light pat. “Nothing to worry about here. Got it?”_

_Another small nod was her answer. It was accompanied by a slightly more noticeable upward curve at the left corner of his mouth._

_Darcy nodded back before returning to her computer to power it down. “Now that that’s done, what’re you up to for the rest of the night?”_

_Her late night companion opened his mouth to answer but apparently thought better of it and snapped it shut. He shrugged cautiously instead._

_“Okaaaay. Well I’m planning on making some tea to help me pass the fuck out. You want me to make you some too? Guaranteed to work. I use it on Thor whenever he gets all Craaaazy God.” ___

\----- 

__  
  


__The thick foliage quickly gave way to weatherworn stone architecture, and suddenly the curses were turning to praises of the God of Mischief when she spotted him propped up against a crumbling temple wall. He was watching her with calculating eyes, mouth stitched up with Odin’s magic thread just as he had been since she and Jane arrived. Her fingers flexed and released the death grip she had had on the hilt on the short blade that Loki had given her on day eight of their quest._ _

__“Man am I glad to see your brooding ass,” Darcy croaked, voice barely audible after days of disuse and hours of dehydration._ _

__He rolled his eyes at her, just as she had imagined he would, and tossed her a canteen that he seemed to pull from nowhere. She was used to it by now, Loki’s offhand displays of magic that had once set her blue eyes alive with wonder and amazement. She drank the canteen down to halfway greedily before forcing herself to stop. The first time she had made a trek on her own and he had met her at the end, she had drank all of it and then gracefully retched it back up again into what was probably a ceremonial urn or something, whatever._ _

__Darcy felt Loki’s familiar feather-light touch on her shoulder before the odd sensation of him being in her mind to speak, filled her. Clint Barton, Hawkeye, had told her about his experience with Loki’s mental magic over a bottle of very expensive scotch. He detailed how Loki had taken him out of his own consciousness, told her about the displaced feeling, like being the water pushed aside in a harbor as a cruise liner docked, and yet it was never like that with Darcy._ _

__Loki had explained to her that the Mind Stone’s power made his own magic so much more potent and poisonous. Without it now, when he wanted to communicate with her, he would establish some sort of physical contact and then there he was, nestled into her consciousness comfortably, like they were standing side by side in her brain, shoulders brushing. To her it was not invasive in the slightest. Sometimes she even enjoyed the back and forth, the mental table tennis she had called it once. Loki had told her to “please shut up” at that one._ _

__“That took less time that I had anticipated” he teased quietly like an echo in her mind._ _

__She side eyed him, glaring. “Shut it, I had a run in with um... A...fuzzy...thingy, with uh, lots of legs...” she answered him out loud. Darcy’s brow furrowed. She knew what the damn thing was called, Loki made her pour over book upon dusty book over most of the summer, categorizing and memorizing all the absolutely insane creatures of Asgard._ _

__Loki’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “Did I not say explicitly no caves, mortal?”_ _

__A shrug was all he received as a response before she slipped away from him and further into the decaying temple. Loki followed Darcy reluctantly, all too use to her headstrong ways. Two strides was all it took for him to catch up with her and regain a mental link to her._ _

__“Thor and Lady Jane returned to Midgard earlier today from their most recent visit,” he told her flatly. “Lady Jane had asked me to pass you a message from her”._ _

__Darcy nodded mutely as Loki reached out to cup her face, giving her the access to the physical memory of Jane speaking to him before she and Thor crossed the Bifrost. Jane herself looked like she had been crying, she detailed to Darcy through extension of Loki how much she missed her and how she would only be gone for a little while but that she and Thor would be back in time for she and Loki’s return. Jane said at least sixteen times to be safe, to stay safe, to make safe choices. She told Darcy she loved her, that she was family, that Thor missed her greatly. She even laughed weakly and promised to keep herself alive till Darcy returned and also promised that she wouldn’t mention her absence to anyone on Earth. She rambled on and on and then the memory faded and Darcy stepped out of Loki’s hands, thanking him quietly._ _


	3. Wrench, Wench

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost, I must say THANK YOU!!! for all the feedback. As a first time fic writer and poster it was pretty heartwarming to see my story getting so much love.  
> Once again, such an amazing shout out to all the lovely people I have met in this fandom thus far, especially the ones who have done the most hand-holding as I churned this sucker out.  
> Without further ado, here's a lil' more for ya! 

“Lewis!” Tony called out, not bothering to tear his attention away from the elbow joint of one metal armed soldier currently perched on his workbench. Bucky was holding the metal arm in question out at an odd angle, the muscles connecting his chest and back to the prosthetic beginning to twitch in discomfort. “Lewis, hand me the metal sauter, chop chop boobs!” Tony barked quickly, whipping his head around to .. nothing. Nothing? Well, not nothing. Just an uncomfortable looking Dr. Foster blinking up at him from across the lab. 

“She um... Darcy...” Jane began slowly, sputtering for words. “She isn’t here, Mr. Stark”. 

Tony nudged Bucky’s arm in signal that he could drop it for now which elicited a gruff but thankful noise from the soldier. “Well where is Wrench Wench, Doc? I don’t remember her asking for any time off recently”. 

Jane blinked again, faster this time. Eyes fluttering for a moment on how to answer the question. “Um…”

“Who?” Steve said more to himself than to anyone else in the room. The Captain was currently holding up the far wall by the entrance to the lab casually, though still dressed in all of his spangled glory from their latest run in. 

“Dr. Foster’s assistant,” Bucky repeated quietly, glancing back at Steve. “Pretty lil’ thing that runs ‘round her doting on all the brains.” He shrugged before turning his attention back to the ground. 

Steve gave him a strange look. “You know her? And I don’t?”

Bucky gave another small shrug, suddenly uncomfortable under his long-time friend’s gaze. “I mean.. I dunno her well or nothin’, just seen her. Heard her. She’s a talker an’ a looker and you wouldn’t know a pretty dame even if she came up ‘n bit ya in the ass”. Bucky deadpanned at the end of his little speech, giving Steve a knowing look. The both heard Tony and surprisingly, Jane Foster, snort in agreement. 

Steve winced, but nodded. “No, yeah.. Now that you mentioned the talking. I remember her, but haven’t seen her in a while”. 

“Hadn’t seen her running around the place since before we left for the plainclothes mission in Canada though...” Bucky turned back to Tony. 

“Canada?!” Tony didn’t even try to hide his shock. “That was last winter and we’re knocking on Christmas’ door like carolers now!” He jumped up and once again refocused his attentions on Jane who was squirming and shying away behind one of her larger lab instruments. “There is no way she has been missing that long and no one's noticed! Where is she, Doc?”

Jane’s eye’s darted for the door, never one for confrontation, and especially not with Stark. Jane wanted out of the lab fast, which never happened. “Um... Yes? She’s... she’s off world.” 

The billionaire’s face fell. “For over a year? For what? There’s no way!Thor’s here. Have I been paying her this whole time- FRIDAY?!” Tony paced back to his makeshift work station, making small, tight circles around the workbench. Bucky traced the jittery man with his ever calculating eyes. 

“Boss?” Came the curt, Irish response of the upstate facilities A.I. 

“Have I been putting bi-weekly salary in a non-working for almost a year lab assistant that is probably off riding unicorns on the rainbow bridge!?” Tony shot, eyes trained up on the ceiling out of habit even though every inhabitant knew that FRIDAY was omniscient, everywhere around them and not just up. 

“Miss Lewis has been receiving her bi-weekly paychecks with no gaps in the direct deposit as well as the christmas and birthday bonus checks you personally insisted upon. However, her last transaction out of her account was made October 24th of last year, $57.99 dollars in music downloads uploaded to Jane Foster’s personal starkplayer”. FRIDAY confirmed. 

Tony’s jaw dropped dramatically. “My god. No more vacation for Shortstack for the next lightyear! And we are so revisiting the pay issue, FRIDAY, later!”.Tony turned back to the astrophysicist. “Okay Doc, spill”. 

Jane shifted, going back to her data. “A lightyear is a measure of distance, Mr. Stark. Not time. But um.. You may just want to ask Thor, honestly? He knows better that I do about all of it anyways”. She muttered, waving her hands at Tony and effectively ending the conversation. 

“I know what a lightyear is…” he muttered, fishing out his own wrench. “Rude.”

\----- 

With some sourcing on Bucky’s part, he and Steve was able to rope in Tony’s reeling mind into getting him to patch up the remaining damage to Bucky’s arm. Much to Tony’s dismay though, he has to locate his own tools, muttering under his breath the entire time. However a short hour after all the work was completed and Bucky once again regained full motion on his limb, the three men set out to find their residential Norse God.

They found said God in the communal kitchen, preparing an entire mixing bowl of sugary cereal. “My brother in arms!” Thor greeted merrily. 

“Hmm yeah, um. Hi. Question” Tony interjected. “Why has Lewis been galavanting across Asgard for the past year? And why didn’t anyone tell me? I’ve been paying her this whole time!”. He held up his hand. “And! And! Why wasn’t I invited? I want to go on magical Asgardian vacation!”.

Thor quickly pushed the mixing bowl aside to give them his full attention. The bowl teetered dangerously at the edge of the table thanks to his sheer force. 

Steve quickly reached out to stabilize it.

Thor thought for a moment on how best to explain what Darcy was doing, turning over the words in his mind, hoping they would come out appropriate as he learned more often than not that most things he said, didn’t. “My lightning sister is on a journey to ascend” he said matter-of-factly once he had chosen his words carefully but the looks he received from the three men could only be read as confusion. “Have you just now noticed her absence from our world?”. 

Tony flinched visibly. “Yeah, and we feel bad about that. Well I do. Tin Soldier too, I think. He pretty much just called her hot to trot. Steve can’t seem to put boobs to name but whatever”. Tony waved one hand in Steve’s general direction and they all were all momentarily amused at the sudden sounds of Captain America trying to deny what Tony had said. Steve’s neck and face bloomed red as roses as he sputtered before sighing in defeat, folding in on himself self-consciously. 

Bucky grunted. “What does ascending mean?”

Thor smiled then, brightly. “When Lady Jane agreed to take my side as Queen, she had wished for Lady Darcy to move freely between worlds. The Allfather would only agree to such a request if Lady Darcy became a warrior of Asgard, worthy before the universe. And she is on such a quest now, with my brother.” 

For a brief moment, everything ceased as Tony and Steve’s faces went dark. Tony bit down on his tongue, shrinking away to suck in a breath deeply. Steve pushed past him then, gameface slipping back on like a mask. Bucky watched it all in mild curiosity, having only heard the minimal about Thor’s brother’s war on New York. He had been shown some of the footage once, in the very beginning. Even still, it was something talked about only in hushed tones around the Avenger’s complex. 

“Darcy can’t be safe with Loki, Thor. Why didn’t you tell us?” Steve demanded quietly. “If she’s been with him for over a year now then she may not even be Darcy at all anymore”.

Thor chuckled and held his large hands up in defeat. “Nay, Brothers. For this I promise, Lady Darcy is safe in Loki’s capable hands. They are helping each other in this journey!”. This omission elicited another round of confused stares. “Loki is still healing from the Tesseract that elevated his own mind to such acts of villainy, however he is much the same brother I grew up with. And in my absence on Asgard, I have asked that Loki rule. The Allfather has decreed that he too much prove his worthiness. Father believes that he can do so by assisting Lady Darcy”. He took his cereal bowl back, and then added for good measure. “His mouth has also been sewn shut with magic thread, so he can not charm her with lies, if you are concerned for her maidenhood”. 

Bucky squinted at the last comment. He was one of the few who was still having trouble wrapping his mind around magic and Gods, witches and magenta colored men in capes. He shook his head out at the strange thoughts. “Thor, bring her back. This shit’s crazy…” 

Thor reached out and clapped his metal shoulder once, hard enough he heard something rattle. “I assure you it is anything but! She is thriving well. It shall not be long before we see her again! When Jane and I accept our crowns, you are all more then welcome to bear witness! You will see then when Lady Darcy takes her own oath that she will be an impressive and formidable warrior!”

Tony shifted closer now, his chest rising and falling but under control, eyes still darting frantically. “I don’t know if I buy it. I don’t trust Loki, sorry big guy but his track record isn’t stellar. Every interaction I’ve had with Loki had left a pretty bad taste in my mouth”. 

Thor shifted, looking small under Tony’s eyes for the first time, ever. “No, I do not see why you would trust him, Brother Anthony. While Loki has proved himself to me by aiding in saving Lady Jane’s life and sacrificing himself.. he has not yet atoned his sins to you and the rest of the Avengers. As well as Midgard for that matter. However, it is I and the Allfather’s hope that after this journey he will continue on the path towards something akin to righteousness.” 

Bucky sighed quietly, shifting his icy blue eyes between a twitching Tony and a stern faced Steve. “I’d like believe you, Thor. But Darcy’s safety is my top concern here”. 

Thor hummed in agreement. “I did not realize you cared so, Sergeant Barnes. I shall set out to prove her safety for you and express to her your deep concerns. Please excuse me.” And with that, Thor rose to his towering and imposing height, stalking out the sliding glass doors and into the yard where he lifted Mjolnir over his head and was gone in an instant, leaving behind only a patch of scorched Earth that Tony always squawked on about. Bucky had made an attempt to jump up and follow, wanting to convince Thor to keep his mouth shut about his “concerns”. 

Steve sauntered after his long time friend, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder blade. “Easy Buck, you know you can’t convince Thor once he’s got something in his head. Just pray he has some tact when it comes to announcing your.. um.. feelings?”.

This earned Steve a pointed look. “Better pray he does, punk. It would be that the first time I talk to a pretty dame in seventy years and a giant Norse God fucks it all up with some ridiculous, well meant words.”

\----- 

Darcy sighed, eyes closed, relishing in the warmth of the morning sun from where she stood at the edge of the docks. She had finally, finally gotten a good night of sleep. Loki had bartered a small dagger that he produced from his boot as payment for a moderate sized room at a harbor town inn.

There was no other way around it, Loki had explained, they had to cross an ocean next. Not that Darcy minded too much. She just wanted to know why they had to go where they were going, to a ghost of a city, ruins of what once was, as Loki so darkly put it, but he gave her no immediate answer. She had laughed at him, because of course wherever it was that she would have to prove her worthiness, it couldn’t be as easy as just another city. Of course not. Why wouldn’t it be a haunted ghost city?!

So she waited, while he bartered something he probably pulled out of thin air this time, for a ship. Perfectly content, Loki had fashioned her with an identical set of clean everything, thank Frigga, as well as a long, wine colored cape that was too hot to be worn currently. He assured her that they would pass through frigid lands soon enough and that she would be thankful, so she took it anyways, folding it neatly and draping across her arms. 

Humming softly, Darcy rocked back on forth on her heels taking a moment to observe the harbor. There were few Asgardians out this early, save the fisherman's and their crew readying for the day's catch. A handful of boats had already set sail, long and graceful, gleaming in the morning sun with richly colored sails. She chuckled at the concept of it, that even in a harbor town, Asgard was rich in wealth as well as culture. If someone had told her years ago when she was running around the campus at Culver that she would be using her poli-science degree to galavant across an alien realm on a quest to become a great warrior, well.. she would have asked for hit off that bong for sure. 

Movement caught Darcy’s eye and she turned towards it. Two young men were playing keep away from their younger sister on the furthest dock, their laughter carrying with the morning breeze. The young girl squealed in a mixture of annoyance and laughter, latching on to the eldest brother's neck. He walked like she wasn’t attached which only made her complain more. Darcy couldn’t help it, her face split into a wide smile, all teeth at the sight. 

_“Keep your arm up, Lady Darcy!” Thor insisted. “Feet firmly planted on the ground”._

_It must have been a strange sight to behold in the royal court yard on that day. Thor without Mjolnir, holding one of Darcy’s wrists lightly over her head while gently swatting away her other closed fist each time she attempted to jab at him, frantically from every angle. Behind her, Loki stood, emitting a low rumble of a chuckle from behind his sewn lips. Every once in awhile, he would reach out and adjust her stance, whispering tips on Thor’s blind spots and shortcomings in her mind with each touch. Some whispers were helpful like “his elbow is raised a tad, aim there” or “he left his neck unblocked” while some were only meant to make her laugh and falter like “Did you know Thor’s cape was actually a tablecloth from the great hall?” or “Between the ages of 92 and 121 Thor wore daisies in his hair”._

_Darcy barked out a laugh, covering her face with her free hand, falling against Thor’s metal breastplate. “Oh what I would give to see that!”._

_Thor’s eyes shot up to his brother, over the crown of brunette curls. “What did you share with her, brother?”._

_“Daisies!” Darcy choked out between fits of giggles, her eyes pressed tightly as she reached up to pet Thor’s soft, golden mane. “I can’t wait to tell Jane!”._

_The God’s face softened at the memory, eyes still locked with the sharp green ones belonging to his brother. “Indeed, twas trying times of youth, Loki enough games with her or she may meet her end before she has even begun”._

_Loki could only roll his eyes at the statement. He could not speak but Thor could imagine his brothers words back to him._

“I have secured us a ship,” Loki’s voice jarred her from her fond memory of a time not so long ago that felt like so, so long ago. She looked down to where his fingers had connected to hers before snapping back to his curious face. “The children on the docks made you think of sparring with Thor and I?”. 

Darcy grinned, of course he could bare witness to her mind when it wandered so easily. “Yes, they’re family,” She nodded to the young trio, the larger of the two brothers had thrown the girl over his shoulder effortlessly while the smaller brother laughed at her flailings, doubled over at the waist. “They’re family and I’m starting to feel like apart of your family”. She watched as one of his eyes ticked and she amended. “Not Father Eye Patch though. Can’t wait for him to take one of those infamous naps, ya know”. Darcy winked at Loki then, and his lips tugged into as much of a smirk as they could manage without pinching the thread.

“A mortal sister is not something I have ever desired since you are of a lesser race,” he told her slowly. “However, you may think as you would like, mortal.” 

He lead her quickly to a golden boat, smaller than most with a large, curling bird at its mast. Loki babbled in her mind about the specifics of the venture across the ocean, all comments on family forgotten, but she only half listened, his voice becoming white noise in her mind as they stood by the captain’s wheel. 

“Lokiiii ..please,” she interrupted him and his voice halted mid-sentence. “Are you seeing this?” she practically exhaled, manhandling him to turn away from the direction of the harbor. 

The God of Mischief willed himself to look out on the bay through her mortal eyes, watching as the sun danced across the dark blue waves, marveled at the habrok that flapped their great wings, trailing their long legs before take off into the skies, headed south. He looked back to her, sighing at her mortal ability to marvel at the ocean, which he knew she had on her own home world. He groaned, not wanting to give her the luxury, but when he took in Darcy’s ever frailing frame and fading bruises, he caved. “Just… sit by the mast. I’ll sail us out” he grumbled. 

Her azure eyes brightened and she launched herself into his chest tightly, seemingly unbothered by the way his whole body tensed, rigid as ice. “Aw broki, you big softy. You’re the fuckin’ best!”. She practically squeaked before bounding over to the mast where she settled, hugging it with one arm to lean over and skim the water with her other hand. Loki winced darkly at how much Lady Darcy reminded him of Thor in his youth. She was all bright summer smiles and an endless array of energy even if she constantly quipped with him about everything. Darcy was stubborn like Thor, headstrong when she shouldn’t be, and like Thor, for the longest time they both knew not of their own strength in the world. The idea of considering Lady Darcy as family left him feeling both aggravated and wistful of his youthful days with his brother. He sighed in frustration, at the man he had become since this quest began. With the thoughts of his own family plaguing his mind, Loki steered the ship away from the harbor, and when a western wind caught their yellow-gold sails they were off towards the mouth of the bay. 

For what seemed like hours, Darcy dotted around the ship under Loki’s watchful eyes. She spent the majority of her time near the mast of the ship, dipping her hands into the water, marveling at how crystal clear it was. She pointed out sea life that she could remember off the top of her head from lessons on the creatures and beasts of Asgard. Loki was surprised that she got more than half of the names right, the ones she mispronounce were close enough to suffice. 

As mid afternoon drew closer and the Asgardian sun lifted higher into the sky, the heat became unbearable. Loki turned away momentarily to shed his coat, and when he turned back Darcy was nowhere to be found. He sighed to himself in annoyance, closing his eyes to concentrate. His magic reached out beyond him, bursting out through the nine realms like pillars of his own life force, seeking out Darcy’s specific entity. He felt the familiar tickle and fizz of magic in his fingertips when he located her unique glimmer in the belly of the ship. Loki scowled. She had quite the knack of disappearing right under his nose as of late, perhaps because he was teaching the mortal too well.

The ridiculous woman interrupted his thoughts when she came bounded up the steps that lead to the living quarters below deck. She was beaming with a particular glint of trouble in her azure eyes that made Loki want to throw her overboard. His suspicions were confirmed when she was upon him in an instant, her arms full of a large grey and brown something that looked like fur. “Looklooklook!” Darcy shoved the ball of fur into Loki’s arms. Only due to his over developed self-preservation instincts did he succeed in keeping the fur at arms length. Darcy huffed dramatically, cuddling the fluff back towards her bosom. “We have a stowaway, I found this lil’ fella downstairs in a cabinet. Darling, ain’t it?”. 

Loki shook his head quickly, reaching out for her shoulder. “Absolutely not, mortal. That is a very young, asgardian kitten and it will surely perish on our journey”. 

Her eyes hardened at his words. “We’re keepin’ her”.

“No”. 

Darcy pouted dramatically, “Come on, come on. It’ll be fine! It’s just a freakin’ cat, what’s the worst that can happen?”. She tried thrusting it into his arms again, but he refused. side stepping her. Another huff of annoyance escaped her lips. “The hell is wrong with you? Not a cat guy?”. 

He shook his head slowly, letting his head drop as he leaned towards her so her shoulder was brushing his arm. Enough contact to establish a connection. “Mortal, are you aware of the Asgardian rituals concerning the feline species?”. 

She side-eyed him as the feline curled it’s head under her chin, rubbing affectionately. “I don’t really think I want to know, if I’m just being honest. It’s probably weird as shit anyways so save your brain-breath or whatever, because we’re on a boat, in the middle of the ocean, so it’s not like she can go anywhere anytime soon”. 

He quirked one perfectly sculpted black eyebrow at her. “It is male, mortal”. 

“Oh” she hummed softly, rocking the cat back and forth in her arms. “Whatever, pretty lil’ him then”. Darcy turned away to make her way back down under the deck. She called over her shoulder to her companion as she made her descent. “Keepin’ him!”.

\----- 


	4. The Starlight, I Will Be Chasing A Starlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!  
>  Again, thank you so much for the awesome feedback. It is all very appreciated :)  
> I was originally going to wait until Thursday to post the next chapter, and become a regular "Thursday-poster" but I have a work thing and will be unable to post anything tomorrow until hella late. Soooo early post! Yay! 

_Bucky watched Darcy as she poured steaming water into two mugs, a tea bag floating in each. The floral scent of camomile hit his nose in an instant, the sharp undertones of lemongrass and spearmint cutting through the sweetness. He watched her from his place at the end of the counter as she poked at the keypad on the stove for it to extinguish, replacing the empty kettle._

_On the elevator ride up she had pulled her long, chocolate locks back into haphazard up-do, giving Bucky the enticing visual of her slender neck. It made Bucky feel as though he had never been so ill-prepared for an interaction with a damn in his entire, god forsakenly long life. When FRIDAY had interrupted his late night of wandering the facility with Miss Lewis’s invitation, he was planning to ignore it. But curiosity got the best of him and he wandered down to the labs, coming face to face with the spunky brunette he had had such little interaction with. She seemed surprised at his presence which didn’t make an ounce of sense to his ever-logical brain. She had invited him after all, teased him for being up so late, baited him by saying she wanted to look at him while she worked. He had laughed at that. Him with his metal arm and broken brain, and her being so incredibly easy on the eyes, he reasoned she had to have been poking some fun his way only. And yet, she talked to him like it was nothing, babbling about what she was doing from across the desk like they had spoken before. Bucky couldn’t help the feeling of slipping back into the way he was before, so very long ago, looking at a pretty young thing like her. And as his old, buried personality bubbled to the surface, flirty words pass from his lips like it was nothing. He instantly regretted them, wanting to snatch them straight out of the air before they reached her ears._

_He didn’t though, because he couldn’t. He wasn’t made of magic like the Scarlet Witch. So Darcy had heard his comment and given him the shock of a lifetime. She had been so frank with her words, so unwavering in her approach to make him aware that he had nothing to be sorry for. If only she knew._

_Bucky surprised himself by following her willingly, like a stray animal, to the communal kitchen, his eyes trained on her and never wavering which brought him to his current predicament of having a delicious looking dame sliding a mug of steaming tea across the counter at him. He blinked down at it and then back up at her. Darcy was leaning forward on her elbows, mug at her lips, blowing cool air over the rim. Her eyes jumped up to meet his, already growing tired under heavy lids and curling lashes._

_He was done for._

Positively done for. 

_He’d been done for before, for sure. But not in this lifetime. Not the way he was now._

_“You’re giving me some serious squirrely eyes, Buckaroo” Darcy whispered, taking a small sip of her tea. He hadn’t even touched his yet. “You still with me or..?”_

_He nodded dumbly, grasping the mug with his metal hand, wincing at the sound of metal dinging against porecelin. He was thankful that it, at the very least, didn’t shatter. “I’m here most’a the time nowadays... the odds of an episode are-”_

_“I know,” she interrupted, and then bit her lip, giving Bucky an apologetic look. “Sorry, bad habit. I talk too much, Jane’s always tellin’ me to shut it. But the point is, I know. Not in a creepy way, but FRIDAY keeps me all up to date on the daily lives of you guys. Health stats, meal time, sleeping schedules”. She shrugged and nodded her head to his cup. “Drink up or you’ll be up all night”._

_Bucky took a large gulp just to please her, he wanted to, for some reason. He didn’t even want to mention that his metabolism would churn through the melatonin in the tea faster than it would take to hit his small intestines, that he would be awake all night regardless of how much knock-out tea she made him. Bucky drained the mug with his next gulp and before the mug could make contact with the counter, Darcy’s hand wrapped around it, tugging it from his grip with ease. Cool metal met her overly warm fingertips, the sensors below the surface metal alerting him to the reasoning behind why her fingertips were so warm; she had previously been holding her own mug, her body temperature was slightly elevated, and she was getting closer to sleep judging by her pulse. All the information registered for him in a tenth of a second, for just as long as her fingertips lingered on his, and then her back was turned, rinsing out both of their mugs in the sink._

_“Why did you ask for my company tonight, Lewis?” he asked suddenly._

_Darcy shut of the water, tossing the rag back into the sink before turning back to him, one eyebrow raised into a defined arch. “You’re such a paranoid little shit, ya know that?” She giggled a little, crossing over to his side of the counter. “I was just curious, I don’t know you at all.” The brunette smiled up at him coyly._

_He felt the familiar boil of James Barnes somewhere inside of him again, clawing to get out and get at this confident, beautiful woman standing in front of him treating him like any other man on the planet that wasn’t a murderous sack of shit. And she was just looking at him with big blue eyes and pouty lips, smelling like fresh brewed tea and deep amber. And he was done. James Barnes was done. The Winter Soldier was done. They were all done, but the man he was now, the mixture of who he was and had been, was just getting started._

_He reached up, tentatively, metal hand coming into contact with the side of her neck. He pushed aside the digital data attempting to invade his tactical brain, because he just wanted to feel. Bucky leaned down, his nose touching her’s gently. “Then get to know me?”_

_Darcy closed the distance between them, pressing her lips firmly to his. He responded instantly, his brain sparking and fizzing with the revelation of it all. Bucky barely registered that Darcy had circled her slender arms around his shoulders and neck, small fingers pressing into the nape of his neck where his hair started to curl away from his scalp. She licked at his lips swiftly and Bucky opened up for her without a thought. He was busying himself with his flesh hand, plucking the hair tie from her hair, combing his hand through her curls as they cascaded. She made happy little mewling sounds at his mouth when his hand caught a small knot, she seemed to like the tension on her scalp and he chuckled at the thought._

_She pulled away first, her lung capacity not nearly as extensive as his, but she didn’t bother to retreat far, still balancing on her tiptoes, lemony-mint breath dusting his lips. “I.. I’d like to get to know you”. She pressed another kiss to his lips. He leaned forward when Darcy pulled away faster than he would have liked. “After I get back, if the options still there..” she said quietly._

_“Of course” he said instantly, dipping closer for another taste. “Take ya out properly, ‘course”._

_Darcy’s lips tugged up into a smile and she slowly untangled from him, pecking him once, twice, before fully dislodging herself from Bucky’s grasp. “Alrighty then...” she said quietly, taking a step back._

_“Alright,” he confirmed, giving her hands a squeeze before releasing them._

_“Allllllright,” she said again, dragging out the word with a smile._

_“Alright” he said again, watching her as she backed up to the elevator doors, touching the call button without looking away from him. He watched the elevator doors slide shut, her playful smile was the last thing he saw. Bucky slipped her navy blue, elastic band he had stolen from her hair onto his flesh wrist, snapping it once to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, before returning to his room with her dazzling face on his mind._

It was the memory of Darcy’s soft smile and sleepy, blue eyes that plagued Bucky’s thoughts when he was hastily slammed onto the sticky, plastic blue sparring mats of the gym. He was sprawled on his back, the wind knocked out of him as he squirmed, gasping for air. Steve snorted, reaching down to peel his friend off the mats, slick with sweat and practically plastered to the floor.

“Somethin’ eatin’ ya Buck?” Steve asked once Bucky was again standing. “You ain’t usually this easy to take down”.

Bucky all but grunted, hobbling over to the bench where he dropped himself sloppily, head rolling back onto the wall with a louder than necessary _thunk_. Steve shifted from foot to foot, crossing his arms across his chest. He had long since learned that his best friend would only talk when he wanted to, but he’d be damned if he still didn’t try to pester it out of him every time it was something.

“Is it about Lewis?” Steve offered slowly, watching for a reaction.

Bucky swallowed, eyes closed. He gave no real indication that he was listening to Steve at all and for a long moment, there was only silence between them and the creaking sound of the plastic beneath Steve’s shifting stance. But Bucky’s eyes eventually popped open and he leaned forward, head dropping forward like he didn’t have bones left in his neck. “Thor’s been gone for a couple days now. And I’m just feelin’ like shit for all of it.”

Steve nodded, plopping down next to Bucky. He gave his oldest friend a whack on the back once, twice for good measure before sitting back. “She’s fine, Buck. Really. That girl’s got some moxie, she tazed Thor when he dropped outta the sky like a drunk sack of potatoes. ‘Sides, even if she is with Loki, Thor trusts him and that’s gotta mean something... I mean, if something bad had happened to her, we would have heard about it from Thor or Jane for that matter, and it surely wouldn’t have taken a year.”

“That’s the other thing..” Bucky muttered. “I know we’ve been all sorts ‘a stupid busy these days but I just feel like we should have _noticed_.”

Steve shrugged slowly. “It’s not like we ever saw her a lot to begin with. I mean.. I feel bad too. She was always so sweet but what, you’ve probably only said eight words to her in the past three years since ya been here, am I right?” He chuckled a little and side-glanced Bucky, instantly wishing he could swallow the mockery. “Nine words?” he offered.

“...Mighta kissed her a little...” Bucky said under his breath, jaw clenched.

If Steve had been drinking from his water jug it would have been spewed all over himself and the floor at that point, he thought. Thankfully his water jug was on the bench next to him instead, so Steve settled for a very open gap of shock and awe. “Sorry what?!”

Eye’s closing, lips pulling into a smirk at the memory, Bucky sighed. “Thinking ‘bout it, it was probably her last night here. She said she was buying music for Dr. Foster...”

“FRIDAY said that was the last purchase she made, October 24th” Steve interrupted, he always did have an ear for details and a bad habit of needing to get the facts straight. “Sorry, keep going.”

Bucky shook his head. “Nothin’ much to say Stevie. She just poked fun at me, made some tea, an’ told me she was going on vacation. Didn’t say year-long alien holiday or nothin’.”

“And then you kissed her? Just like that?” Steve was still a little confused by it all. “The hell Buck, you use to be way smoother than that story.”

Captain America earned another glare from the man next to him. “Shut it. It wasn’t like I just started mackin’ on her outta nowhere. We chatted.. _she_ chatted. Talked like normal, and I couldn’t help it”. He sighed. “Said I’d take her out properly when she got back, wonderin’ now if I’ll even get that chance.”

There was a pregnant pause as Steve nodded, knowing all too well the feeling of missed opportunity and the way it weighed on a man’s heart and soul. He hoped to God, to Thor, to Odin, or whoever was listening right then and there that his best friend would get the chance. Lord only knows, Bucky had been through enough in his unnaturally long life as it is and Darcy Lewis was one great gal.

“I’m sure ya will, Buck.”

\----- 

_“Far away... This ship is taking me far away. Far away from the memories.. of people who care if I live or die. The starlight... I will be chasing a starlight until the end of my life. I don’t know if it’s worth it anymore-”_

Loki sighed internally. They were coasting by way of the east night winds, hours from any civilization at all. His companion, the mortal Lady Darcy, had perched herself at the back of their vessel, stowaway feline curled into her lap as she softly sang to it a song from her world. He listened, for lack of any other amusement as of current, to her voice which was barely above a whisper and not infinitely awful, at any rate.

 _“-hold you in my arms, I just wanted to hold you in my arms. My life, you electrify my life. Let’s conspire to ignite… All the souls that would die just to feel alive.”_ Darcy shifted the cat from her lap to a spot next to her where it mewed in annoyance. She snickered, tickling the indescribably furry animal between the ears. _“I’ll never let you go if you promise not to fade away, never fade away. Our hopes and expectations... Black holes and revelations. Our hopes and expectations, black holes and revela-”._

“Stop your incessant whining this instant mortal” Loki’s voice snapped in Darcy’s mind. 

Darcy jumped letting out the most strangled and high pitched wail yet at the God of Mischief who was lounging effortlessly next to her as if he had been there the entire time. Despite her startled movements the feline beside her did not stir. It simply glared it’s icy blue slits at Loki before curling in upon itself, monstrous tail flicking. 

“Jesus Christ Broki!” she gasped, clutching the bronze clasp holding her cape together at her collar bone. “Quit fucking doin’ that” she grumbled. 

Loki made a rumbling sound deep in his throat, the sound she had lately been associating with what might be a laugh, involuntary and slipping out between the seams of black on his lips each time she did something stupidly human that might amuse him. She pursed her lips together. “Who's steerin’ the love-boat Lokes?” 

He reached out, wrapping a tendril of her hair around his long fingers. 

“Huh, apparently dead cells acted as a neural bridge between minds too, who knew.” She chuckled at just how ridiculous her life was these days. 

“No one is steering, the winds will drift us in the right direction. By morning light we will be in sight of the shores of Nastrond,” he said quickly. 

Darcy nodded, inclining her head back to take in the vast array of stars above them. She smiled, thinking back on her first nights off world when she and Jane would climb to the highest tower late in the night, mapping all the constellations that they could. On some nights Thor would join them, telling tales of the stars and how they got their, magical tales of heros and villains, mythical beasts and star crossed lovers. Back then, she was so enthralled with everything, so entranced, hanging off Thor’s every word story after story, lulled to sleep by his rich baritone voice as Jane gently stroked her hair. There was a nervousness in those days too, a feeling of not belonging, a strain pulling at the seams of her life. A part of her always thought Odin would one day just scoop her up and toss her off the rainbow bridge. 

Now, Darcy looked at Loki. He was staring directly at her, with this look of pure annoyance, she could practically feel it in the air they shared. And even still, the only thing it did now was warm her. So she laughed, because there was no uncertain feelings now. 

“For the love of Frigga, _please_ stop. Your head is full of nonsense!” he barked at her. “Stop _thinking_. The Allfather wouldn’t toss you off the Bifrost, he wouldn’t even want to _touch_ your mortal flesh.” He watched as Darcy winced visibly, a wave of insecurity rushing forward on him through her life-force that he had linked himself to. It was so much so that he almost flinched as well. “Enough, Lady Darcy. You belong. We will finish this quest, if we do not we shall both surely meet our untimely ends.” 

Darcy perked up at this. Just as suddenly as the insecurity had bled out, now came deep admiration and excitement. He blanched at it. She was always like this, so lively and full of _emotions_. “Damn right, we’re gonna make it, Loki-Doki!” she tossed herself at him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders lightly. “You need me.” 

His voice ground out in her mind, strangled like he was in pain. “Get off of me.” 

She squeaked, drawing backwards. “Fine, asshole.” Darcy took the feline into her arms again, cooing at it. “What should we name him?” 

“We name him nothing,” his voice sighed at her. “He already has a name. That feline is Braggi, offspring of Lord Byron of the Feline Kingdom.” 

For reasons Loki could not, would not understand, Darcy apparently found this bit of information so amusing it dissolved her into a fit of giggles. She reached out, resting an arm against him to steady herself as she wiped small tears from her eyes. “This whole fucking place, Loki! I swear to Thor! Even cats have kingdoms?! Just stop!” 

“I am afraid I do not understand.” 

She shook her head. “Nah, nothing. Never you mind, Mischief. It’s just me ‘n my dumb mortal brain trying to rationalize everything.” Darcy patted his shoulder encouragingly. “So if you say this barge is gonna sail itself, you can get some shut eye! Braggi and I will keep watch. After all, ya let me sleep last night.” She gave him a pointed look. 

Often, in the beginning, she would constantly ask him when he slept or why he didn’t. Loki was reluctant to admit that he would only occasionally rest when Darcy was also blessedly silent and asleep, even if that put them in mild danger from time to time. He considered, more than once, magically moving them between realms; depositing her in Jane Foster’s room where the two women would undoubtedly squeal in delight for a few hours before he would go back to retrieved her, more rested and pleasant than when he would leave her. Loki always decided against it. 

Turning to look at her, he knew deep down that he could not leave her and the feline to their own devices for an extended period of time while he slept as well. They would _undoubtedly_ do irreversible damage to something in that amount of time it took for him to rest, he was sure of it. 

Darcy winced. She knew what the look of intense calculation meant for him. “No sleep for you then,” she decided. “Fine, I’ll catch some Z’s under the deck. You wanna watch the cat?” 

Loki shook his head vigorously, springing back from her and the large, furry mass she had hoisted into her arms. It only seemed to amuse her greatly. She cackled about his “rude cat-titude” as she drifted down the stairs, Braggi in tow. 

\----- 

Darcy woke to the rays of Asgard’s bright sun peaking through the cracks in the wood around her. She shifted away from the offending light, gracelessly tumbling from the hammock-style bedding she had cocooned herself into the night prior. Blindly, she felt around for her glasses before flailing back down onto the hardwood floor.

Sleeping on a boat proved more troublesome than she had originally intended once they waves started rocking. Darcy had shot up to the deck to heave her guts over the railing twice before finally settling. It had been the most fitful night's sleep she had had on Asgard, ever. Darcy swore she would gladly take bobbing in the river behind a rock over sleeping on that boat again, any damn day.

Thankfully it felt like they were docked so she hauled herself to the deck. 

Darcy’s senses were instantly assaulted. From the geography Loki had pushed on her months ago, she knew that Nastrond bordered giant ice sheet that jutted out into the sea of space, and as a result of such, the territory suffered from a starkly frigid climate. But nothing in those dusty books and maps could have prepared her for the prickling-numb feeling of crisp winter air hitting her face. Darcy blinked harshly, pulling her hood up over her head. She took a moment to glance about the deck and found only Braggi pacing back and forth along the railing. Beyond him were the docks of a frozen harbor, the town itself built into the side of a great mountain range. From the base, where rock met ice, harsh lines and shapes were carved out of the stone, doorways dotting all the way up. Windows flickering with soft orange lights were the only inclination that these mountains were inhabited. With what, Loki had not told her.

She exhaled, her breath puffing out in a white cloud, curving away in a whisp. Loki wasn’t anywhere within eyesight and Darcy wasn’t exactly compelled to brave the docks and the mountainside village without her native tour guide. Shrugging, she took her place at the railing as Braggi’s pacing came to a stop to nuzzle her face.

“Where’d Loki get to? Huh Brags?” she whispered to him, tickling her way down the feline’s spine. He arched dramatically into her hand, yawning, seemingly unaffected by the frigid drop in temperature.

\----- 

Braggi had won every staring contest Darcy had started in the past hour. She made herself comfortable near the railing again, sitting cross-legged with Braggi curled into the junction between her legs, tail flicking back and forth.

“Your eyes remind me of someone's Brags..” she smiled, pushing her face directly into the pet's personal space. She squinted before pulling back. Braggi’s own icy blues seemed to regard her with pleasant amusement. “There’s the guy back home Brags, he’s got some eyes like yours. And don’t get me wrong” she snorted, “I’m not much of a romantic or anything, but I could totally get lost in his eyes!”

The feline gave a mewl of approval. At least she hoped it was a mewl of approval.

“Anyways” she smiled, pulling Braggi closer. “We only kissed once so it’s not like we made any promises or anything, but still it was one hell of a kiss and… I totally miss him, which is weird. Do you think-- Fuck. I’m talking to a cat now. This is my fucking life!” She let out a frustrated little huff, warm air drifting in front of her face. “My life is talking to a cat on a viking ship, docked in front of a snow mountain village while waiting for the God of Mischief and Lies, oh god damnit!”

Darcy sighed, nuzzling her nose in between Braggi’s ears. It seemed like she sat there for forever listening to the wind wail against the aged wood of the ship before she felt the familiar weight of Loki’s fingers lightly gripping her shoulder.

“You sleep like the dead, mortal,” he said. “I grew impatient waiting for you to stir.”

“Well I had a long night” she shot back. “Where did you run off to anyways?”

“I scouted the base of the mountain,” he said quickly. “I hope you know you are wasting your breath telling your feline about your entirely mundane love interests. I assure you mortal, Braggi is already abreast to your feelings.”

“This cat can’t read my mind like you, can he?! And you heard that?! How close were you standing?!”

“It is not like that,” he shook his head, glancing at the cat in her lap. Braggi seemed to settle further into her, gaze set like steele. “Please get up now mortal. We have to make haste.”

\----- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright guys. Per usual, you can always find me on tumblr to chat.  
>  rlw0810 on there as well. 
> 
> Fair warning. Next chapter gets pretty graphic. I will be updating the warnings for this before I post it, and will warn ya'll again in the beginning. JUST IN CASE you want to skip the next one entirely. I wouldn't be offended in the slightest if you're a little squeamish and don't appreciate the gore. 
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed it! ;)


	5. Breakfast, & What Not To Do Before It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good evening friends :)  
>  Once again, thank you so much for all the comments. They are very much appreciated!! :*  
> Alright, so, I updated the warnings here, but just to make sure we are all on the same page...  
> Things are about to get #VIOLENT. Like, pretty freaking violent. So if that isn't your cup of tea, totally fine, just skip this one and look out for next weeks chapter. I don't mind at all. :) 

Braggi had taken to sitting in Darcy’s hood, his furry front paws draped over her right shoulder as he happily mewled into her ear. It was a sweet, reassuring sound that kept her grounded as she watching Loki’s back. She was following him a few paces behind, snow crunching beneath their boots. 

He waited for Darcy to catch up at the base of the mountain, hand lingering on the small door carved out of a solid slab of shimmering granite. She sidestepped him, pressing up against the door. Her eyes scrutinized over the carvings, hands tracing over the smooth lines depicting row boats and elongated humanoid figures, legs swooping out from under them, crushing smaller figures. Her small hands twitched over each line and etch. 

“Is it a story?” she asked Loki, glancing back. 

He only nodded, pressing his palm flat against the stone. It rumbled open, swinging wide, as if it had already been jostled open once before. Warmth from the hearth within flooded out, rushing over their skin. Darcy sighed in relief at the feeling, Braggi purred, and Loki only grimaced slightly. 

Darcy waited a single beat before stepping out of the cold and into the mountain. She inhaled deeply, a soft metallic scent hitting her nose that she could not place. There was nothing around her to cause the scent, which only added to her confusion. Just smooth stone walls leading forward into soft flickering lights that she assumed was a fire down the way. 

“Anybody home?!” she called out. 

Behind her, Loki snorted, placing two finger tips on her shoulder blade. “You would really be so bold as to announce yourself? I take back any resemblance I may have originally thought you had to Thor. You are more moronic than even he.”

She groaned, crossing her arms while shrugging away from his touch. “Asshole. I was just checking, you never know!” She shifted from foot to foot. “So do we go forward from here, tour guide?”

He nodded slowly, reaching out with his palm up. 

Darcy rolled her eyes, slapping her palm flat against his like a reluctant, lingering highfive. Her mind snapped “What?!” at him sharply and Loki’s eyes narrowed. 

“Listen carefully mortal, beyond us is the home of the Haur. They are stone dwelling dwarves that worship Skadi. There are not many of their kind left in this world. I have taken care of the immediate ones already, however the deeper into the belly of the mountain we go, we will surely encounter more of the like and some of the unlike. Keep close to me while I search for the key we seek.”

“What key?” she squeaked. 

Until this point, Loki had been vague on the journey as a whole, keeping to cryptic answers to her questions on what they were looking for, how it would prove her worthiness to Odin, and how it or who or whatever would aid in Loki’s freedom. It was all so clandestine and secretive, and she stopped questioning things after the first few week when the responses became more riddles than answers. 

But now, a key! Clues, she almost smiled. 

“A key that we will need. That is all you need to know, for now.”

She huffed. “Fine, you said you took care of any immediate danger? Let’s go then! And that better be a fire up there, with breakfast cooking!”

\----- 

It wasn’t.

Darcy had read about the Haur and their Goddess Skadi. It was one of the first books Loki had tossed her way. 

Literally tossed, she thought bitterly. He was adamant in saying that he hadn’t aimed for her head, but a concussion she most definitely received. She was genuinely surprised she remembered the texts she had read on them. 

However, Haur from the books did not give the real Haur’s justice. Even as she happened upon the scene Loki had laid out for her earlier, a handful of bodies lying in a heap by their sparsely furnished home fire, she marveled at just how grotesque the really were up close and personal. Haur were depicted short in stature, with skin like cracked stone and overly large mouths harboring sharp teeth. 

And they were that. But more. They did indeed have skin like stone, if stone meant the desert of New Mexico with deep set cracks from drying out under the sun. Overly large mouths was a severe understatement, Darcy could only imagine if alive their grimace would spread nearly ear to literal ear, mouths stained with shocking blue blood. The ones whom had died with mouths open gave her the opportunity to gape openly at their teeth, practically daggers, razor sharp and as long as human fingers. 

“Murder before breakfast Loki, really?” she groaned. Darcy poked one of the dead Haur with the toe of her boot. “There isn’t even any breakfast on the fire, I hate you.”

He rolled his eyes but said nothing in response to her inquiries of breakfast or the murder before it. Loki watched her pace from dead Haur to dead Haur for a moment before slipping away, checking the adjoining rooms to make sure no stray Haur had appeared in the time it had taken to go back and fetch her from the boat. The God of Mischief did not stray far however, keeping his channels open to her life-force, which was calm and collected, threads of magic humming lively under his fingertips. He was impressed, given the circumstances, that she was so strangely alright with being left in the living room of a Haur home with a handful of fresh corpses. 

Once he was satisfied with the immediate surroundings being clear, he poked his head back into the first room only to immediate regret doing so. 

Braggi was on the ground, pacing a small circle, keeping a close eye on Darcy whom was currently busying herself with a rearranging of the Haur corpses. She was truly ridiculous, Loki thought, watching her as she used all of her strength in her small body to forcefully drag the Haur across the floor, leaving smears of bright blue in their wake. She arranged them to lay heads to the fire, feet to the threshold door, all in a row. 

“So that when their spirits rise, they can head out the door” she said matter-of-factly when she noticed his strange look. 

Loki shook his head sharply, stepping over Braggi as he approached her. “Who says they even have spirits, mortal?” he asked her, grasping her forearm to pull her away from the carnegie. 

Darcy’s face screwed up in a grimace. “Of course they do, Jesus, what the hell is wrong with you? Just because you killed them doesn’t mean I can’t at least give them some decency. You left them where you slayed them!”

“Will you be doing this every time we have to cut something down?”

The idea of having to kill more stilled her, but her mind whirred to life. He could feel it through their connection, the instant uncertainty of it. A tight, sickening feeling that twisted through her coldly. Loki sighed into her frail human conscious. 

“Allow me to take your mind off the impending death of our enemies then, mortal.”

“Wha-?” she started when Loki scooped her up into his arms, turning where he stood. He didn’t have to share a mental connection to her to know that her brain shot into overdrive, screaming at him obscenities, “what the fuck”’s, and “put me down”’s. He chuckled at her and then in one quick motion hurled her back first onto the Haur’s rickety, wooden table. 

Mental connection severed, he sighed gratefully. 

The table crumbled under her small frame. Darcy groaned loudly, wood dust settling around her. 

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!?” she sat up slowly, glaring at Loki as he started sifting through the wood fragments nonchalantly as if he hadn’t just tossed her through a table. Gingerly she stood on shaky legs, stepping out of the ruined table, wincing at the pinch in her spasming lower back. 

Loki made the low rumbling sound in his throat again, laughing at her. Grasping the end of her cloak with both hands, he ripped a long strip from it. 

Her jaw clenched shut. “What. The hell. Are you doing?!”

He did not dignify her with a response, instead wrapping the cloth segment around the end of a splintered off piece of wood before tying it off and dipping it into the fire. It roared to life when it caught. 

Loki turned and passed it gently into her hand as if it were fragile glass, to be guarded and kept safe. 

“You could have just made this from space magic, shit-head.”

He shrugged, stepped over Braggi, and ventured deeper into the mountain. Darcy groaned, glancing down at her cat and then at the torch crackling in her hand. Her back twitched again sharply as she moved to chase after Loki, but she tried her very best to ignore it.

\----- 

“-- _So slow down, there’s some kind of blessing here but you have missed your cue_ ” Darcy sang lightly, humming the words she didn’t remember. She had been following Loki down winding, dark caverns for nearly six hours now, Braggi hot on her heels. He hadn’t so much as turned around once, her torch burning bright enough to cast the light ahead of his steps. After a few hours of silence, she tried conversing with him but Loki was solely focused on finding this key.

The key. 

Whatever, she still hadn’t the faintest clue about… any of it. Darcy sighed to herself. Being kept in the dark about the entirety of this whole goddamn journey was starting to wear her already frayed nerves dangerously thin. If Loki didn’t start giving her answers soon, he would have another thing coming. A short burst of high voltage thing to be exact. 

“ _So keep your eyes set on the horizon, on the line where blue meets blue._ ” Darcy’s nose twitched at the irony. The Haur bled blue which was certainly a sight to behold. She shivered, pushing away the oh-so-fresh memories of thick blue dripping from teeth and greyish tinged gums. “ _And I would let that silver lining where I know it’d find you soon. Because I have sailed a thousand ships to you but my messages don’t seem to make it through. Well I--!_ ”

Loki jumped for her faster than she could register movement, his hand slapping across her mouth, hauling Darcy’s form towards him. “Hush now” he hissed between her ears. 

Darcy exhaled through her nose, nodding in reply. She stood stalk still pressed against his shoulder, Braggi curled in between their feet. The only noise in both dark directions was the torch burning steadily closer to her hand and their breathing, Loki’s even and Darcy’s a little sharp and unsteady. 

She closed her eyes and concentrated a little harder to speak to him the way he would speak to her, making sure it was a clear and unfrazzled thought, unmuddled with her usual emotion. “Did you hear something?”

“Ahead.”

“More Haurs?”

“Perhaps, mortal.”

Darcy gulped.

Loki reached up, grasped the torch, yanking at it till her white knuckles released it into his hand. She followed his hand with her gaze as he tossed said torch forward and down the stone hall. It bounced once, twice, before rolling forward to a halt, illuminating nothing but emptiness all around. 

“Guess you heard wrong?” she questioned, pulling his hand away from her mouth. 

He shook his head. “Never mortal.” Loki glanced down at her, feeling a pang most similar to regret within him as he saw Darcy’s eyes shift uneasily around. “Please wait here.”

Loki disentangled himself from her nervous grasps, stalking forward. He didn’t bother with the torch, moving past it and slinking into the shadows beyond what her vision could bare.

“Thank goodness for you or else I would be alone” Darcy sighed, watching Braggi weave between her legs, rubbing his fluffy sides against her boots. “How long should we--?”

Darcy’s one sided conversation was cut off abruptly by a screeching roar in the direction Loki had just ventured off to. 

And then another. 

And another. 

She froze in place while her heart seemed to take the opportunity to attempt eruption from her chest. She could hear the shuffling of feet on rock, the distinctive hum of Loki’s magic, and then a wet, sloshing sound, undeniably flesh being ripped open, thumps as flesh hit the floor. 

A tremor of panic ripples through her. 

Her own legs carried her faster than she thought possible, springing into action without hesitation. 

Darcy hadn’t even registered that she was moving until she was passing the still-lit torch on the ground, rounding the sharp corner into another dimly lit cavern. She squinted, shrank as close as she could to the wall, overstepping a freshly dead Haur. This Haur’s chest was split open, a mess of blue blood and innards painting the floor where it was spilling out, still gushing.  
The scent of it hit her nose like a wave of humidity, thick and moist, sour on her tongue. 

That was the sharp metallic scent she had smelt when the first entered the mountain; blue blood and guts. His stomach rolled out a foot away, busted open at the connecting seam to his intestinal tract. The Haur had had some sort of a grain for breakfast, she could _see_ it. In fact, she had stepped into it. 

Darcy gagged but crept forward, ears ringing loudly. 

Another loud roar and unmistakable thump. 

A sharp right this time, and another Haur. This one still panting and alive, but only barely, spluttering out from a large chunk missing in it’s side. Darcy clung to the farthest wall, begging any God that was listening that it wouldn’t see her but when she finally could tear her gaze from the blast radius on this Haur’s waist and up to it’s face, it locked eyes with her. Black eyes, no whites to be found, it’s mouth hanging open, long sharp tongue like a lizard jutting out between nightmarish teeth. 

It inhaled sharply - a last ditch effort of something close to a breath - before letting out a strangled bellow of a roar, loud enough still that Darcy knew she was suddenly in deep shit. The deepest of shits. 

Fuck being tactful. 

And fucking where was Loki?!

Darcy sprinted away down the narrow path, panting heavily, trying to hold down bile as it made its threatening route up her esophagus. Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dimness without the torch and she could make out the walls growing wider, the figures up ahead. One was Loki, the gold on his regalia she knew too well. But there were two Haur now, one in front of him and one far behind. She prayed he knew. 

He didn’t. 

She watched in awe as his magic came to life in his left hand, a brilliant light show of blues and greens. Loki reeled back before plunging his left hand into the first Haur’s chest, a spray of blue coating him as he ripped back, pulling stringing organs out from the newly made hole in the Haur’s chest cavity. Lifeless, the Haur slumped into a heap at Loki’s feet. 

Darcy couldn’t have cared less about the first dead Haur or how ridiculous it was that her companion had just pulled out it’s heart with a glowing hand because she couldn’t feel a damn thing, except blinding fear. She felt that, multiplying in on itself infinitely. Overwhelming her as her lungs constricted. 

Her mouth opened, but no words escaped. 

She found herself once again in a staring contest with pitch black orbs, the second Haur. She begged her throat to work with her, willing it to produce a noise, any noise to warn Loki of what was behind him, but none would come, as the second Haur lept forward in a animalistic motion, sharp claws and feet latching to Loki’s form as it’s infamously large mouth and teeth sank into his shoulder. Deep, red blood sputtered from in between ragged teeth, the droplets hitting the stone floor, projecting to her ears like they were in surround sound. 

“LOKI!” _Oh, there was her voice._

Loki’s eyes snapped wide, his form tipping left under the weight of the Haur with it’s fangs latched into him. From behind the black threads, she heard his strangled breath and it tore straight through her. Darcy felt something physically snap in her chest, a deep primal feeling that she couldn’t rationalize. Lunging forward, screaming wildly, her short blade clutched like a lifeline, she swung a dramatic arc. 

A spray of blue, the same metallic scent. Darcy had made contact, and with the correct target no less. 

The Haur sprang back, staggering a step as it released Loki. Darcy vaulted forward again, around Loki's kneeling form, tackling the Haur down while it was still confused. It hit the stone floor and let out a shriek, tongue dancing forward. She flailed on top of it, an uncoordinated mess of arms and legs slashing and kicking, pulling her blade back and shoving it forward, meeting resistance and pushing anyways. 

Something cracked loudly. Her mind rationalized that it was bone. 

_She didn’t give a fuck_. 

So much blue blurred her vision and a tangy, sour taste stuck out in her mouth. _She didn’t care_. 

Darcy pulled her arm back again before sinking the blade down into the Haur’s face. It’s eyes bled inky black.

Again, and again, and again until her vision blurred and still she didn’t stop her assault. She relied on her ears when her eyes failed her, the crunching sound of bone and cracked flesh, the ring of metal on sharp teeth. And then when her ears failed her there was just her breathing, wheezing, and then nothing.

\----- 

“I told you to wait”

Darcy’s eyes fluttered open, and then slammed shut. Too soon, everything was still spinning. She inhaled through her nose, parted her chapped lips to exhale. It came out as a groan. She was sore, her limbs on fire, but she was thankfully on her back. Darcy could feel Loki’s cold hand wrapped tightly around her right wrist. 

She tried opening her eyes again, everything spinning a little less. “Wha…?”

“You broke your wrist when you idiotically tackled that Haur.”

The Haur. Darcy’s eyes widened and she sprang up to sit, her abdominal muscles retaliated to the idea. With all the grace of a wounded sloth, Darcy rolled onto her stomach, propping herself halfway on her forearm. She turned back up to where Loki was knelt to her right, still keeping a loose grip wrist despite being tugged to and fro during her repositioning. 

“That was the last of them, we are safe” he told he. 

“Did I-?”

He nodded. “And then fainted. But only for an hour. I healed your wrist.”

Darcy groaned. She had just killed something. 

What the hell. 

“It had to be done” he assured her quickly. “And I suppose your assistance was not uncalled for, entirely. While I had told you to wait, you did eliminate the last one for me quite thoroughly.”

“If that’s your way of saying thank you, it’s a shitty one” she sighed, glaring at him. “Are you okay?” Her voice softened to a whisper as she nodded to his shoulder.

Loki rolled his shoulder, the one that had been very clearly gnawed on only an hour ago. “I will heal. Try sitting up again now, mortal.”

Slowly, Darcy willed her body to comply and blessedly, it did. She whimpered when her eyes drifted over to the far corner of the cave where her slain Haur laid, a crumpled massacre of blue and not much else. 

A softness brushed up against her side, startling her frazzled nerves. Darcy made a chirp of a noise, neck practically breaking as she refocused on Braggi, poised at her side, tail flicking happily. She choked, instantly flooded with a wave of remorse. “God damnit, I left you behind. Shit, I am so so so sorry!” she cooed, plucking the cat off the ground and hugging him close to her chest. He was a little heavy for Darcy’s currently gelatin-like arms, but she wanted him close regardless. 

Loki lingered over the dead Haur, grasping it’s matted black hair in his fist, hoisting the lifeless body a bit off the ground. His free hand raised Darcy’s short blade to it’s neck and in a graceless motion Loki severed the Haur’s head from it’s body. He yanked forcefully and it’s spine sloshed out partially attached to the head. 

Darcy gulped, pressing Braggi’s face into her neck. This was not a sight for kitten’s to see. “What’re you doing?” she slurred, feeling lightheaded all over again. 

The response she received from him was that rumble of a noise in his throat that told her Loki was amused. By what in Frigga’s name she didn’t have the damndest idea. He stood, regarding her with the head, or what was left of it, firmly in his grasp before it vanished from existence entirely. 

Oh. 

“Damnit Broki, you shit. Where did you send that?!”

\----- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys! Have a wonderful evening. :)  
>  Hope you enjoyed all that violent nonsense.  
> Hit me up on tumblr if you'd like to chat!! 


	6. That Which You Seek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyooooo lovely people :)  
>  I know it's not Thursday but I feel like shaking things up a bit so how about a new chapter a day early?  
> Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. 

The Allfather felt the urge to retire to his chambers earlier than his typical schedule decreed. He had had quite the full day of holding court with Nidavellir’s royal family, dealing with them frayed the edges of his patience. 

Odin cared not for the fact that it was still daylight out, shutting his doors without regards to those who was waiting outside of them. 

He sighed when black hair caught his eye. Resting atop his many pillows, peaking out from under the golden quilt, pulled across the entire bed haphazardly. 

Who would dare, he wondered, stalking over to the side of his bed. Odin grasped the quilt in his fists, flinging them back with such might that they sailed backwards in the afternoon light, cascading onto the floor like a golden river. 

There, lying amongst the Allfather’s pillows, was the slayed head of a Haur. There was nearly nothing left of it’s face, flaked off cracked skin lay open to gashes and wounds, jaw sliced and hanging at an unnatural angle. It’s tongue halved, a tooth shoved through the stump of it as part of it’s spine lay jutting out, staining the sheets with drying blue blood. One black eye lay busted open on the socket, oozing out the viscous black liquid that gave Haur’s their haunting gaze, while the other eye was missing entirely. The nose, large and round, was the only feature saved. 

Odin sighed again, scratching through his beard.

\----- 

“Loki?!” Darcy wheezed, clutching at the brass clasp of her cloak. Her muscles were still languid and heavy, working overtime just to keep on step with him. She made a mad grab for his coat tail as her right knee gave out for the third time in the last hour. The first time it happened Loki told her that it was because she had kneed the Haur. The second time it happen he amended that she may have kneed the Haur’s chest plate repeatedly till it cracked. Darcy could have sworn she felt the familiar swell of pride coming from his side of the connection, but if she did, she didn’t say anything.

He halted mid-step to right her, shaking her when she resisted. “You will need to quicken your stride, we are almost there.”

“Where though, Loki? Where?!” she practically whined. From the changes in the way the inside of the mountain had started to look thirty minutes ago, Darcy could only assume that they were climbing up, the walls growing thinner and colder, small specks of white, snowy sunlight peeking through the cracks. 

“As I have never been in this mountain before, I can not tell you for certain where, exactly…”

She groaned. “Of course, why would it be that easy?” Darcy laughed, letting her head loll forward onto his forearm. “I hate not having answers…”

She could hear his almost silent exhale before Loki was tugging her forward by her upper arm. “Answers come to those who seek them, mortal. You should know this by now.”

“I know, I know…” she groaned, glancing back as their pace picked up. Loki was all but dragging her along now, Braggi prancing steadily behind them. The cat seemed unbothered by anything thus far, thank goodness. 

Darcy took to counting the cracks in the corridor. It kept her distracted from the painful twinges her body was giving off every few steps and it also kept Darcy’s mind completely occupied at the surface from Loki’s intrusions. It was a little trick she had been taught early on when they were forced in close quarters together and she grew tired of constantly being berated on where her mind slipped to. 

In fact, it was Loki who had suggested it. 

_Thor was not a good dancer, Darcy had decided bitterly as she watched her small best friend being swung just a little too hard into a twirl. Jane stumbled but quickly caught herself, giving her lover a shy smile._

_“Great big oaf” Loki huffed dramatically._

_She turned her blue eyes back onto him, to their simple swaying and easy mastery of the steps that were just taught to them. Loki twirled her, she obliged without hesitation. To put it lightly, Darcy smiled smugly, they were putting the future King and Queen of Asgard to shame on the dance floor mere moments after being taught the steps._

_“And yet, I am the one descended from giants, for God’s sake!” Loki’s voice had hit the octave of an actual whine in her mind, something she previously thought he wasn’t capable of._

_She glanced back at her friends, snickering lightly at the way Thor had to bend so dramatically to accommodate Jane’s small frame on the dance floor. The lesson was said to be mostly for Jane’s benefit, a practice run for their first dance as King and Queen, but after the first hour or so it was painfully obvious who would benefit from it more._

_After the second hour Darcy grew restless and tugged an unwilling, thoroughly annoyed Loki out onto the dance floor. He groaned to her internally, pleading for her to sit back down and leave him to his solitude but she would have none of it. She simply took up his hand and started to emulate the steps that were explained to Thor and Jane at the start of the lesson._

_Before long, with some smartly made comments on Loki’s part, the two were gliding around Thor and Jane like it was only natural. To anyone who was unaware, it would seem as though Darcy was chattering enough for the both of them, her mouth running wildly about everything and nothing. However, if one were to listen closely, a pattern could be detected. A very distinctive monologue on her part, a small pause, and then an expansion on her part again, or an insult to throw back at him. There were occasionally longer pauses where Loki educated her on how he learned these steps thoroughly years ago, while Thor was busying himself with the act of eating actual dirt at the training fields. She would ask about Thor then, his childhood, and by extension Loki’s. And for a moment, something most similar to a sparkle would cross his eyes, before he would launch off into a humorous tale of himself, his brother, Sif, and the warriors three._

_Darcy listened and nodded, and eventually the conversation stilled. Her mind lapsed further, to a not so distant memory of shocking blue eyes, lips on hers, and small smiles. When Darcy had left Midgard with Thor and Jane, she hadn’t really expected to be gone this long. They were rounding out on month four off world and she was starting to miss the Avengers, and home, and… Bucky._

_She coughed, cleared her throat, trying to cover up the sudden pang of guilt welling up in her chest. Darcy knew she had no real right to miss him. I mean, for Thor’s sake, she thought, it was one damn kiss. Once. Sure, he had said he’d like to take her out when she came back, but shit, it wasn’t like a promise or anything. And she shouldn’t get her hopes up, really. She wagered he very well could have forgotten it by now. It had been two months. But that kiss was-_

_“Enough!” Loki’s voice assaulted her harshly._

_She physically startled, faltering in her dance steps. “Wh-what?”_

_“Just how often does your mind wander to that metal armed man?” he asked her, mischievous glint igniting in his emerald eyes._

_Darcy cleared her throat again, feeling her cheeks heating up under his judgement gaze. “Often?” she offered him after she thought about denying it. No point in denying it, she figured, since he was nestled so very comfortably among her many thoughts anyways._

_“His gaze spoke more than you will ever know, provided that memory is not your brain’s own falsification of the events, so you need not worry.” Loki sighed. “Keep your mind occupied elsewhere, count the number of times Thor flattens your Jane Foster’s feet even. Just stop filling my mind with your incessant, mortal qualms.”_

_She huffed and then began to count backwards from one thousand, loudly, in her own mind. Loki spent the rest of the impromptu lesson grumbling about how he would much rather relive her memories an eon over than listen to her annoying voice recite off Midgard’s numerical system._

“You stopped counting a sixty-two.” Loki’s voice reminded.

Darcy blinked up at him. “So I did. Sorry.”

He shook his head. “Pick up your feline. From here, we exit the mountain, I believe.”

Darcy pivoted around, swooping up Braggi into her arms, simultaneously ignoring his usual uncertainty. She helped his furry paws over her shoulder, to settle back into the position he had grown so accustomed to in her hood. “Okay, now what?” she asked, turning her attention back to Loki. 

He motioned for her to follow behind him as they crept forward slowly, rounding a wide corner to the right. Soft white light broke through from above, the mountain opening up like a wide mouth fifty feet directly above them. 

She instantly dreaded what was coming next. “You’re going to make me climb that shit aren’t you?”

Darcy winced when he didn’t answer, he instead reached out to test the sturdiness of the rock wall. That was, unfortunately, answer enough. A few tense minutes past with only the sound of Braggi’s even puffs of breath in her ear while Loki poked at the rock, mapping out their course of action with precise detail. 

He glanced back to her once before hoisting himself up as he started to scale the wall. His movements were agile and quick, and before she knew it he was well above her general line of sight.

“Oh” she squeaked. “Oh, okay now. Sure. Yeah. Let’s climb a mountain right fucking now!” Darcy huffed, shifting her cat further back into her hood before emulated Loki’s exact steps vertically towards the mountains exit. 

While Loki made no noise himself, climbing like a wild cat preying on a hunt, Darcy whined quietly to herself with each pull of her muscles. Her right knee still throbbed distinctly, screaming at her to stop moving each time she scraped it against the jagged edged that protruded. She didn’t stop moving, she didn’t even dare to attempt to look down, she just hugged the wall harder each time her feet gave out under her body weight and gravity's sick game. 

It wasn’t long before she felt Loki’s hands grasping her clock to hurl her up and over the ledge. Darcy scrambled, dragging her lower body out of the crevice, clawing clumps of snow as she went. Braggi tumbled from his spot in her hood, leaping out and into the snow in front of her face, his furry feet kneading at the white powder. 

Darcy’s senses were flooded with bright, white sunlight and the crisp new snow smell that she usually relished.

“Stand up, quickly” he hissed, tugging at her shoulders. 

Darcy moaned, rolling up onto her knees, the icy snow felt wonderful on her sore body. So wonderful she didn’t bother to brush off the clumps of it as it seeped through her clothing, melting a soothing wet trail in it’s wake. She did however rub at her eyes with her fingers, begging them to re-adjust to the brightness of the sun reflecting on the snowy mountains peak. 

“Nya vänner.”

A resounding, distinctly female voice stilled the air around them. Darcy’s hands fell from her face as she scrambled to her feet. She squinted in the bright light as everything seemed to clear, the howling of the wind ceasing, the snow flurries settling around them all because of the voice. 

When Darcy locked eyes with the owner of said voice she could have sworn her tongue swelled to twice it’s size to be choked on in her own throat. Darcy didn’t know whether to shake with fear or sheer anticipation. She had only encountered a handful of magical folk in Asgard as of yet, but this… woman, for lack of a better term, was positively, without a shadow of a doubt, mythical. 

The giantess before them towered twice the size of Loki at least and Darcy drank her in with her eyes openly. This mystical being was thoroughly icy as she regarded Darcy and Loki with prickling silver skin and a mass of frosty white hair, a graceful ivory bow grasped in her hands, quiver packed full of glistening icicles. 

“Whaaaaatthehell” Darcy breathed. 

The giantess’s tinted blue lips quirked into a smile. “Nya vänner. Greetings, new friends.”

Darcy nodded dumbly. “Um… hi?” Maybe she was more friend than foe?

Behind her, she heard Loki snort judgmentally, jutting one hand out for her's. “You imbecile. She is the Goddess Skadi. Odin instructed upon me to seek her out intentionally for she has the key which we require. Ask her for it as I cannot.”

Darcy made a strangled noise in her throat before turning back to the giantess, Skadi, and gulped. She remembered the stories, Skadi residing in the highest of mountains where the snow would never melt much like her heart after a failed marriage to the god Njord. Those old, dusty books told of her natural born talent as a huntress and her exotic beauty, right down to her legs that morphed into crystalline skis. Darcy glanced down and sure enough… skis for feet. 

She sighed, Asgard was so, so weird and this was her life now. 

She cleared her throat again, shuffling forward through the snow. “Again, hi. Um… My name’s Darcy Lewis! And the stitched up dude back there in the infamous God of Mischief himself!” She hitched one thumb back in Loki’s direction. “Sorry for kind of climbing up into your home-”

“- Your company has slain my dwarves, Darcy Lewis.” Skadi interrupted calmly. It sent an impromptu shiver through Darcy’s body. It wasn’t as though she had forgotten but it wasn’t as if she was actually ready to talk about that little indiscretion yet. 

Murder, even of a creature, in Darcy's opinion, took a while to get over. And it had _only_ been this morning.

Darcy winced. “Sorry… about that. Loki is a little stab happy, I think? And then they attacked…” Another groan escaped. “Goddamnit, this isn’t going well…” Darcy pawed at her own face in frustration, rubbing some warmth back into her cheeks in the process. 

Her obmission must have somehow eased the Giantess some. She smiled again, looking down upon Darcy. “It was necessary for their lives to be given, for this I do not blame you. For what do you seek, Darcy Lewis?”

Darcy let out a little, breathy laugh. What did she seek? “I’m not exactly sure. Odin sent Loki and I on a journey to claim our worthiness and Loki just now mention something about a key. So… I guess, I seek a key? It’s probably not your run of the mill house key, I’m assuming… If that helps?”

Skadi hummed in agreement. “I had thought as much, that the Allfather would eventually send for it.”

“So you have the key?” It came out as more of a squeak than a true question. Darcy hadn’t really expected it to be that easy. Hell, everything else about this quest thus far had been convoluted, odd, and more than a little exhausting. Apart of her had expected this part to be just as difficult. 

The Goddess Skadi nodded slowly, her large hand gripping the bow tighter. “I alone am in possession of that which you seek, Darcy Lewis. I have hesitation on relinquishing that which you seek, however. I care not for Odin and his wars.”

“Wars?” Darcy echoed, glancing back at Loki. 

He looked curiously back at her. No help whatsoever. 

She turned back to the giantess who was regarding her patiently. 

“We are all under the Allfather’s rule.” Skadi began slowly. “The Allfather has sent you to collect the key to the rotting city of the dead. I shall have to concede, but not without my own requests…”

Darcy sighed, shifting from one foot to the next in an attempt to keep warm. “There’s always a catch huh?” she snorted. “Okay, what is it? I’m assuming we need this key so I kind of have to agree, well played by the way.” 

Slowly, the giantess dropped to one knee, attempting to meet Darcy’s eyes. She succeeded to only towering over Darcy marginally less now. “Darcy Lewis.” Skadi began, “My mountain is dying. My dwarves are starving. I will relinquish to you the key you seek if you swear to bring game and hunt back to my mountain.”

“I’m sorry, what now?” Darcy choked. 

“It is simple, Darcy Lewis,” Skadi said, “Bring me but a pair to hunt within one seasons time, swear to double their number yearly, and you shall have the key. I can relinquish it to you first and foremost if you are willing to bind yourself to such a promise.”

Darcy gulped audibly though her eyes never wavered from Skadi’s cool gaze. “Any… pair of animals? My choice?”

A small chuckle escaped the lips of the mountain Goddess. It was musical and light like snowflakes touching skin, melting instantly into a puff of moist nothingness. “You may, Darcy Lewis, do we have a deal?”

Darcy sucked in a shaky breath, turning over her shoulder to Loki. He gave her a curt nod, reassuring her that this was acceptable. She couldn’t possibly fathom how it could be acceptable, but sighed none the less. “Just call me Noah, Goddess Skadi. I’ll bring you some animals, two by two, my companion doesn’t think it’ll be a problem, apparently!”

“Please do not send them in an arc, Darcy Lewis.” Skadi replied flatly. 

A snort escaped from Darcy’s nose, completely unladylike, yet she did nothing to hide it. She beamed back at Loki, who was completely unamused by her antics. “Loki, she made a joke! Can she lead me across Asgard in your place?!”

Loki shook his head grimly, motioning for her to turn back to the deal at hand. 

She did, and was met with the outstretched palm of a mountain giantess. Her long, slender hand was quite possibly the length of Darcy’s forearm and she was clearly expecting to shake on the deal. Darcy was hesitant, but cautiously she extended her own hand. She gasped when Skadi’s hand enveloped hers fully, her silver skin searing against Darcy’s. Quickly she jerked back her arm from Skadi’s grip, yelping. Her hand, once a soft and creamy porcelain blossomed to pitch black, starting from the very ti[s of her fingers before weaving up her arm. 

“Wha… whatthefuck?!” Darcy screamed, clawing at her palm, yanking the bronze cuff from her wrist. It was thrown into the snow without a care. She watched in horror as the black continued to rush down, softening to an ashy grey before blending into her skin at the elbow. Darcy clutched her hand as if it were foreign to her, no longer apart of her body. 

Loki was at her side in a blink, plucking her arm into his own hands, turning it over to examine every inch. “It is magic, mortal. To bind you to her, until you have fulfilled your oath.”

Darcy had grown accustomed to Loki’s magic. Despite the way it had first been described to her, she found mostly that Loki’s magic was warm and enveloping, giving her the sense of assurance she needed even if the God it emulated from did not. Skadi’s magic, however, touched her skin like packed snow, chilling her to the bone. She shook involuntarily, turning back to Skadi with wide, wild, hunted eyes. 

“It will recede when you provide me what was promised, do not worry.” Skadi nodded, stretching to her full height once more. She reached up into the mass of dancing white curls, weaving a silken chunk around two fingers before yanking them harshly from her own head. 

Darcy winced at the snapping sound of hair follicles separating from scalp. 

That had’ta fucking hurt, Darcy thought. 

She turned onto Loki who still grasped her forearm. He blinked into her eyes slowly but remained silent in her mind. 

“Your key, Darcy Lewis.” Skadi spoke. 

Turning her attentions back to the Goddess, she watched as the strands of hair began to weave themselves together, fusing into the shape of a curling, ivory-white key. It could be no more than four inches when the transformation was complete, looking completely miniscule in Skadi’s large palm. It hung on the single strand of hair left intact, white and thick as a wire. 

They key was dropped into Darcy’s blackened palm. She gasped at the smooth texture of it, the weight of it in her palm, but could not feel the key itself, only the prickling solidity of it. Her nerve endings tried to understand the new, displaced sensation, her brain faltering because of it. 

“Now go.” 

Darcy’s lips parted, the makings of a goodbye trying to form, but Loki was faster. He crouched down to grab Braggi by the scruff of the neck in one hand, Darcy’s arm in the other, displacing their forms from the top of Skadi’s mountain home to the harbor beneath the cliffs. 

Braggi yowled loudly as Darcy stumbling, ripping away from Loki. She clutched the key close to her chest, her other hand reaching blindly as her legs gave way beneath her. Her knees hit the wooden dock with an unmistakable thwack but the pressure of the key in her dead palm was all she felt. Darcy’s mind however was whirling into overdrive. 

There was nothing but the waves of the sea sloshing against the iced over land and Darcy’s panting breath to fill the silence.

\----- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr @rlw0810!  
> I never mind chatting :) 


	7. A Misunderstanding of Cat!Astrophic Proportions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good evening friends :)  
>  Hope you all enjoy this installment.   
> The plot THICKENS!

“I know what I’m doing, Loki!” Darcy practically growled through clenched teeth at the near millionth time she heard him exhale through his nose with a tone that only Loki, the patron saint of Assholes and Judgey-ness, could pull of. His breath created plumes of white in the frigid air, rendering him much like a dragon in Darcy’s eyes. 

He had been unpleasant, to say the least, since they had re-boarded their ship to sail North around Nastrond’s peninsula, only to veer West towards the apex where Alfheim joined with the “Enchanted Forest”. 

It was Darcy who had turned over the idea of the Enchanted Forest as a destination in her own mind before deciding it was their best course of action. Loki had grumbled at the premonition, attempting to make contact with her, invade her mind, and figure out her thought process. Each advancement was met with a sharp slap from her blackened hand, too brief for a worthwhile neural connection. 

“Stop it Loki, I’m serious!” she warned, flopping backwards onto the deck benches after he had attempted to grab hold of her shoulder. 

Darcy busied herself with scrutinizing her darken palm. She held it close to her face, tracing over the skin with the fingertips of her unmarred hand, marveling at the way her skin looked no different, aside from the gut wrenching color. Darcy let Braggi lick at her fingers softly, feeling nothing but the pressure exerted from his sandpaper tongue. She stretched out, regarding the back of her hand at arm's length for a few moments as well. 

Everything seemed the same, in order. No pain, just different. 

Darcy pressed her lips together. If Bucky could see her now, she wondered, what would he think? His left arm made of metal, her right arm from the elbow down a charcoal dip-dyed disaster. A match made in heaven. 

“Loki?” she whispered softly.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as he turned from his place at the heim of the boat to trace over her with irritated eyes. It was as if the more vexed he became, the more amused Darcy felt. She felt a familiar giggle bubble up from within her as his brow pinched together further.

She swooped up Braggi into her arms, turning him over onto his back to rock him like a child. “Tell me Asgard had rabbits right? Cause if they don’t that’ll really put a kink in my plan?” 

Darcy grinned brightly as a more relaxed sigh hit her ears, her sparkling azure eyes never leaving Braggi's.

\----- 

Thor had spent the majority of the day in company of his father. Something he had been honestly trying to avoid. He had wanted simply to locate his brother and Lady Darcy, find proof of her well-being, and slip quietly back to Midgard.

It did not go as seamlessly as Thor had hoped. The Allfather had summoned him at once to show him a newly gilded and mutilated head of a slain Haur, mounted above the throne, and before Thor knew it Mani was dropping below the vantage point of the horizon and he had not yet located Loki and Darcy. 

Time had decidedly _not_ been on the side of the lightning God today.

“Brother Heimdall!” Thor greeted as he approached the gatekeepers post. 

Heimdall nodded in his direction. “Greetings, Thor first son of Odin.”

Thor chuckled lightly, shifting his cape as a cosmic breeze picked up slightly. “I require your assistance, Heimdall! I am in search of my brother and Lady Darcy. Our company on Midgard requires proof of her safety and I have been task with this!”

The Gatekeeper golden eyes drifted west. “The Trickster and Darcy Lewis are in the company of Braggi, the seventy-second son of Lord Byron." He paused thoughtfully, eyes squinting as if trying to focus on the distance. "Their current whereabouts are adrift West to fulfill a promise in paradise.”

Thor exhaled slowly, rubbing his beard absentmindedly as he puzzled the Gatekeeper’s words. The feline Lord’s heir was a conundrum in itself, why Loki would allow the creature to stay in their company made no sense whatsoever. 

Thor knew his brother all too well. There was a better chance that Loki would feed Darcy to a stray feline Lord than let her keep it but Heimdall was never wrong. 

The talk of “promise” and “paradise” was also deeply troubling, as the quest set forth by Odin was suppose to be a treacherous trial of mind, body, and soul. 

“I can not stop you, first son of Odin, if you take it upon yourself to seek them out,” Heimdall began, “Know though, what you find will not please you.”

\----- 

Thor did not find Loki nor Darcy easily, at first. He had went too far west, landing himself in Vanaheim at the home of Vidar. He spent a few days too many combing the countryside before wandering East into the mountains of Asgard where he sought out trolls who claimed to have not seen the God of Mischief and Lies in over a thousand years. These trolls also claimed to not know what a Midgardian woman even looked like, but that was neither here nor there in Thor’s honest opinion.

From there, Thor crossed the border into Alfheim. It was then that Heimdall’s words echoed loudly to him and he suddenly understood. 

Paradise...

The Enchanted Forest of Alfheim. 

It was suddenly all the more clear.

\----- 

Thor caught sight of his brother and the fair Lady Darcy on the outskirts of a poor orchard village near the Northern most tip of the forest.

Despite being covered in a layer of grime and grit, sweat and a fair amount of shocking blue blood, Loki and Darcy stuck out in the forefront of the landscape to Thor. Maybe it was Loki’s soft glow of magic, humming and crackling in the air around them, or Darcy’s mortal form set against the backdrop of Asgard that rendered them unblendable, he did not know, but he found them none the less. And he was grateful.

Until he caught sight of her more closely as he approached. 

Darcy was meandering through the orchard, inspecting pale green fruits that hung down heavy from the frail branches. She was making teasing remarks to Loki about how she was going to manage feeding him these with his mouth sewn shut and Thor was convinced then and there that his brother’s eyes would be firmly stuck to the back of his head before their journey concluded. 

“Thor!” Darcy gasped, letting her blackened hand drop away from the fruit and out of view. “What are you doing here?”

Loki’s gaze ticked up to meet his brothers briefly before turning back to the forest in the distance. 

“Brother! Lady Darcy! I am pleased to see you both in one piece!” Thor boomed, reaching out to take Darcy into his arms. He lifted her clear off the ground, pressing her to his gilded breastplate. 

She smiled at the fondness of it. 

“Were you checkin’ in on us big guy?” Darcy snickered when Thor placed her gingerly back on the ground. Loki made a sound of displeasure in his throat that elicited a quick “Oh hush you!” from the brunette. She made an involuntary motion with her right hand before quickly realizing her error. 

Thor’s large hand was grasping her by the right elbow, hauling her arm close to his face. 

“Before you freak out… I can explain!” she squeaked. 

“This is what Heimdall meant” Thor grumbled, tracing his thumb against Darcy’s wrist. He could feel cool magic swirling beneath her skin, nonthreatening but strong.

“It’s fine Thor,” Darcy assured, giving him a small smile as she pulled her wrist free. “I made the Goddess Skadi a promise in order to obtain the key!” From the bosom of her wrapped tunic she fished out a small, ivory key hanging limply from a silver strand of coarse hair. 

Thor’s eyes narrowed in on the key which shone so brightly in contrast to Darcy’s black palm. “So I see.”

Darcy beamed triumphantly, tucking the key back under the confines of her outfit before shifting back to the bountiful trees. “So what are you doing here?” she asked as she plucked a low-hanging fruit. She turned it over in her hands, carefully inspecting it for any blemished before unsheathing her short blade. When she produced a chunk from it she gasped quietly at the richly red-hued flesh of the fruit, undoubtedly thinking it was to be similar to a Midgardian pear, just by physical appearance.

Thor watched with mild confusion as she crouched down and offered the piece of fruit to an immensely fluffy feline the size of a Midgardian dog. This feline must be Braggi, seventy-second son of the feline Lord Byron, Thor mused. 

Once again, Thor zeroed in on his brother with stern eyes. “Brother, certainly you did not gift Lady Darcy this feline?”

From the ground where Darcy crouched came a small but distinct huff. “No, I found him! And Loki won’t even go near him! Weirdo…” She stood again, taking a large bite from what was left of the fruit. “You didn’t have to check up on us though, I promised I wouldn’t strangle his moody ass when we left and I still haven’t! That's brownie points dude, cause boy have I wanted to! Broki threw me into a table and everything!”

Thor chuckled, his blonde mane shaking in the bright sunlight. “On the contrary Lady Darcy, I am here upon request of Sergeant Barnes” Thor delivered as if it was the most mediocre statement he had ever uttered in his entire millennia of existence. 

Darcy’s face fell drastically into panic. “Did something happen to him?” Her eyes dances frantically over Thor’s face, trying to read any ounce of emotion that she could from the Thunder God. “Is he hurt?” she asked darkly. 

She was suddenly pulled back into his strong arms as he laughed loudly, patting her roughly on the back. “The sergeant is well, little one! He expressed concerned over your extended absence and while I tried to foray them, he has requested proof of your well being and safe treatment! I have come to acquire such!” 

Darcy wiggled again, dropping out of Thor’s arms and landing on her rear in the grass with another huff. “What?”

He regarded her with soft eyes, pulling her up by her cloak collar in an effort to help her righten her stance. “Tell me, my Lady Darcy, why did you not vocalize to any of our company on Midgard sooner of the love you and Sergeant Barnes share?”

Darcy was sure, _oh so sure_ , that her jaw had physically detached from her face at that point, based on the momentum of how fast and hard it had snapped open. “WHAT?! H-he said THAT?!”

Thor shook his head. “Not in so many words, but he was indeed pained by your disappearance. In fact, most of our company on Midgard is quite unhappy without your presence.”

Anger rose within her faster than she could contort her mouth into a snarl. “It’s been months, almost a year there! If he-they- If any of them were worried, why didn’t they send you sooner!? You know what, no!” She crossed her arms firmly, like a stubborn child, lips set in a deep frown. “We don’t share love, or whatever crap you’re spewing! It was one admittedly awesome kiss, but that’s it! Once! And it’s fine, I’m fine! Tell him and the jolly band of misfits that I am just fucking peachy!”

The Thunder God gaped at her and then turned to his brother who only shrugged and went back to studying the forest in the distance. 

No help, Thor thought. 

“Lady Darcy, do not be angry. The sergeant cares for you deeply despite what you may want to believe. He did not say this was so, but I can feel it in the displaced air around his soul, like your own.”

She shifted uneasily from foot to foot, toeing the core of the fruit that Braggi softly gnawed at. “I’m… not mad, okay? I just… I don’t know Thor, okay?”

He hummed in agreement. “Being unsure is acceptable, Lady Darcy. You are both yet so young.”

The statement alone must have helped more that he had intended for before Thor’s very eyes, Darcy’s lips drew back into an amused smile as her eyes creased slightly in the afternoon light. “Thor, Bucky’s almost a hundred years old. Don’t let that ass fool ya!”

Thor shrugged shyly, unsure of how to articulate a response. It was true, indeed, that Sergeant Barnes was much older that he appeared to be, but he had been preserved, not quite the same as living. 

Thor chose not to broach the subject, sidestepping to the original reason for seeking the pair out. “In any case, I shall not stay any longer. I do not want to intrude further on your voyage but I shall require some form of proof of your well being to deliver directly to Sergeant Barnes.”

She winced visibly, taking catalog of everything that she and Loki had carried or acquired thus far. It was a very short list apparently because she ran through it in her mind in half a second, coming up with only things essential to their journey and nothing that could be given that would not be missed in some capacity sooner or later. 

"Except…" she whispered more to herself than to Thor.

Darcy crouched down again, hoisting the large feline into her arms. 

It mewed in protest. 

“This is Braggi, Thor. He’s getting huge and I really don’t know how, we barely eat the slop they serve in the town cantina. But he’s friendly!” She shoved him forcefully into Thor’s arms. “Broki over there keeps saying it’s not safe for us to keep him and that he doesn’t want his precious reputation tarnished over being seen with a Mortal and an Asgardian cat, as if people care! So give him to Buck for me?” she smiled. “Just… tell him all’s good in the Asgardian hood, or something like that and that I miss him? All of them, I guess... “

Thor nodded, looking down at the cat. “I will bestow this feline upon your intended, good day Lady Darcy, brother!”

With Braggi tucked under one arm, Thor raised Mjolnir to the heavens and in a technicolor flash and sizzle of electricity he was gone, leaving behind scorched earth and a confused looking Darcy. 

“What did he say about my intended?” Darcy asked Loki slowly. 

Loki’s mouth did it’s very best to grin menacingly despite the black thread. The result was less than flattering, but Darcy still winced at it. 

She did not like the look of it, at all.

\----- 

Bucky tried his best to stay out of the way, leaning against the the counter in the adjacent kitchen, nibbling quietly on a slice of cold pizza. It was equal parts amusing and alarming at how hell-bent Steve had been to make the living quarters on the East side of the compound into a Christmas wonderland.

Steve had recruited Clint in Thor’s absence to help with the tree. It was a spectacle, to say the least. 

Bucky eyed the tall pine tree curiously. It looked horrifically out of place amongst the muted colors and sharp edges of Tony’s meticulously designed common area. 

“Stop starin’ and tell me if it’s straight?” Clint grunted from under the tree. 

“S’straight” was all Bucky said. He tugged his hood up and over this head, going back to his pizza.

Steve chuckled, “I think it’s secure, Clint. Thank you. I appreciate it!”

Clint army crawled his way out from under the monstrous tree, leaving a trail of pine needles in his wake. “Don’t sweat it Cap, even if it is admittedly a little late to be getting into the Christmas spirit…”

“I thought Tony was gonna do something with the place!” Steve started, a hint of annoyance in his voice. He shrugged shyly, “But with Christmas in a few days, it became kind of obvious he wasn’t catching the spirit, so I thought I’d take it into my own hands-”

“-My hands you mean, I didn’t see you down there screwin’ this son of a bitch into its stand!” 

“Language!” Tony’s distinctive shrill called out over the intercom system. The three men in the room groaned simultaneously. The long running joke about Steve’s delicate disposition were at this point, only funny to Tony, whom had pre-recorded the punchline to be played anytime someone swore in the living compound. The only advantage it had was when it scared the pants off a stray SHIELD agent.

“Excuse the interruption, gentlemen.” FRIDAY chimed in. “Per your instructions Captain Rogers, it is my pleasure to alert you that Thor Odinson has just reappeared on the helipad outside." She paused thoughtfully before adding, "The helipad will need repainting.”

Bucky paused mid-crew, pizza crust sticking out from between his lips. 

“Thank you FRIDAY! Can you put in a work order to have it repainted first thing tomorrow morning?” Steve called out, clasping Bucky on the back. “Come on Buck, he’s gonna have some good news for you, I can feel it!”

“Certainly Captain Rogers” FRIDAY replied. 

Slowly Bucky nodded, shoving the rest of the pizza crust into his mouth before zipping his hoodie up further. “Okay, let’s go.” 

The three met up with Thor in the flight hanger, halting in their tracks as Thor turned to greet them with a frantic looking cat the size of a dog in his arms. Thor looked ecstatic to see to see them, his eyes locking directly onto Bucky’s. 

“Brother James! I come bearing a gift and message from Lady Darcy!” Thor boomed. He was upon them in four large strides, pressing the overly fluffy feline into Bucky’s stiff arms. 

Braggi purred, the rumbling of such a giant animals vocal cords vibrating the plates on Bucky’s arm. 

“What the hell…” Bucky whispered as Braggi rubbed his face against Bucky’s ear affectionately. 

“Allow me to introduce Braggi, the seventy-second son of the feline Lord Byron!” Thor explained, gesturing to the cat in Bucky’s arms. “He is a courting gift from the fair Lady Darcy! As he is so very clearly taken with you, I feel now that your match has been made correctly. May Braggi serve as a representation of the love you and Lady Darcy share!” 

Steve coughed loudly in an attempt to cover up an audible laugh. Clint made to such effort. 

“What now?” Bucky croaked.

Thor sighed, his large fingers scratching Braggi between the ears. “It is Asgardian custom that a feline is bestowed upon an intended as a bride's gift. Lady Darcy has instructed me to deliver such a gift to you, as well as a message conveying that she is in fact well! I would parrot them directly but I do not share her creative tongue.”

“Bucky’s Darcy’s bride!” Clint roared with laughter, clutching his abdomen. 

“Thor, this has got to be a mistake?” Steve questioned, his eyes jumping back and forth from his best friend’s stunned face and the clearly smitten cat in his arms. “Why is that cat so big?” he asked as if it was the only thing that struck him as odd.

The Thunder God shrugged. “Braggi is but a normal size for a young feline kitten of Asgard. How large he may become is based solely on James and Lady Darcy’s bond. He will feed off of their shared positive energy and grow strong like any Asgardian feline is meant to! He shall protect their future home!”

“He’s already about twenty pounds…” Bucky muttered, reading the weight of the feline from the data being sent from his prosthetic to his brain. “Wait, does this mean she proposed to me?” His mind seemed to be jumping to life as loudly as his arm was, senseless amounts of data, thoughts, and raw emotion whipping around all at once, leaving his face vulnerably confused. 

Thor considered the notion, turning his head this way and that as if physically passing the thought from one side of his conscious to the other. “ By terms of Asgard, yes. However you are not a resident of Asgard, so I would decree no. Lady Darcy may decide which realm she would like to reside in once her quest is completed as she will then be a warrior of Asgard. If she so chooses to reside in Asgard, then yes?”

“Doesn’t answer the question” Bucky murmured gruffly. The cat was nuzzling into the crook of his neck, loudly purring like a jackhammer in his ear. 

Thor laughed joyously. “Nay, it does not. You will have to decide that with her the next instance you are within her presence!” He gave Braggi one last pet on the back before nodding in the direction of Steve and the form of what once was Clint, now a puddle of giggles on the floor, before taking his leave to seek out the labs and his own intended. 

“I guess…” Bucky shifted Braggi slightly, “I guess we have a cat now?” He looked back at Steve who was doing his very best impression of a disapproving father, arms crossed and lips set into a thin line. 

“You hate cats, Buck” he said matter of factually. 

The brunette shrugged. “Yeah, well, he seems to like me. And it's not like I can just refuse ‘em. It’s from Darce…”

Steve groaned, turning on his heels. “Whatever, you’re scooping the litter then!”

\----- 

Darcy tried to keep her breathing even but she was panting all the same, her darkened hand clasped firmly over her open mouth in an attempt to muffle the sound. She crept as quietly as she could forward, keeping her eyes prone to any white spots within the foliage.

Darcy had been hot on the fluffy tail of an Asgardian rabbit a few moments prior, but just like the last half a dozen she had chased today, she seemed to have spooked them into disappearing. 

Literally disappearing, of course, she groaned. Fucking Asgardian magic rabbits...

Loki seemed not to be fairing much better. She had ran directly into him two hours ago, rounding a tree on her fourth or fifth failed attempt of the morning. He had also been empty handed and scowling. 

Rabbits, she had told him, had been her master plan since they had left Skadi’s mountain top. After the initial shock of it, she had explained that Skadi’s request had reminded her of a children’s book she had read in elementary school called “A Grain of Rice”. 

She then went on to tell an unenthused Loki an overly animated story about a poor man in China working in a palace who only had eyes for the princess. Darcy explained that the emperor would not approve of their marriage because the man was so poor, so the princess grew gravely ill. Loki rolled his eyes at this but Darcy ignored him, going on to illustrate that the emperor said anyone in the country would be rewarded richly if they could make the princess better. And of course, Darcy exclaimed, the young man could! He was taught to mix herbs as a little boy. But all he asked for was a single grain of rice up front, doubling the number every day for one hundred days. Before they knew it, she told him, the young man owed all the rice in the land and was thereby the wealthiest man in all of China. 

Darcy went on to connect the thoughts, claiming that there was no easier way to double the number on animals yearly than to use rabbits. Rabbits of Midgard, she laughed, doubled their numbers exponentially all year long and were entertaining to hunt because of how quick they were. 

Loki had been decidedly amused at her cunning and quick thinking. The feelings however faded quickly in the days since. They had ventured into the forest almost immediately after Thor had departed and after the better part of a week they only had quick glimpses of rabbits to show for their efforts thus far. 

She had even questioned at one point where all the other animals of the forest were but Loki had only shrugged in response, face ticking in amusement. 

“Fucking enchanted forests and their fucking forever springtime bullshit” Darcy hissed, stopping in her tracks to wrap her hair up into a haystack-like structure at the top of her head. She had already shed her cloak at their makeshift campsite before they set out that morning and since then the temperature had continued to climb.

Darcy scanned the surrounding areas for any glimpse of the rabbit in question. She found no white, however, just a plethora of green. 

Everything in this forest seemed to be covered in a soft, thick layer of moss. It wrapped gently around any and every surface, it hung in dramatic arches from trees creating a beautiful canopy, and small annoying puffs of it clung to her clothing. 

“Fucking hell,” she cursed, “Where’d ya go lil’ buddy?” 

She sighed, swinging the net Loki had conjured for her like a baseball bat, stirring up the surrounding leaves with every whoosh. 

Loki, the lover of all things extravagant, had made the ornate net, magically fashioned from twigs, about as tall as she was, causing most of her catch-attempts to fail more due to fumbling and sheer human error than to the rabbit itself poofing away into nothingness and white dust. 

Darcy huffed, letting the obnoxiously large net fall across her shoulders lazily. She turned her face upwards like a sunflower seeking out the warm rays of the sun. Slowly she let her eyes lull closed, inhaling the damp, woodsy smell of the forest.

\----- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr, ladies and gents ;)   
>  Rlw0810 on there as well. Because I am as unoriginal as they come and therefore use my initials and birth date for everything. Woo!   
> Also, please note that the children's book mentioned in this chapter is real and an excellent read for kids. It teaches them all about math and the perks to saving your "money"! HA! Accounting-nerd rant over. ;)  
> 


	8. ntrusive Wildlife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there lovely friends!  
>  Another chapter. Hope you all enjoy it. :)   
> Fair warning, it gets creepy near the end. But... we have SOME answers coming. Woo. 

Steve had been bugging Bucky to join him on his morning runs lately. In Bucky’s opinion running was not a communal activity. Most days he would pretend to sleep through his phone buzzing Steve’s ringtone. 

Bucky enjoyed running the track at the North end of the facility in the evening, rather than in the morning. He also preferred running alone but that wasn’t always possible. On a rare occasion he would be joined by Wanda, who was always blessedly silent, working through her own set of glaring personal issues. 

On one brisk winter Tuesday, when the sun was almost below the horizon, Bucky returned to his apartment in the residential building, the burning sensation from a good couple of miles still tingling in his muscles. 

Wanda had in fact joined him today, and they ran in their usual silence, nodding as they parted ways for their separate homes. She resided in the east wing of the residential, across the hall from an empty room. She had wanted it that way, she insisted.

The faintest of smiles passed across his lips as he neared the door to his apartment. 

It had been happening all day in fact. 

It seemed like he had woke up like this, with the lingering bits of contentment clinging to his consciousness. Some of this, Bucky thought, could be attested to his new companion. 

After only a few short weeks as a pet owner, things between he and Braggi seemed to have fallen into place. Braggi seemed to adore Bucky right off the bat which was reassuring. After all, this cat was Bucky’s only real proof that Darcy was still out there and thinking fondly of him, which meant more than he thought it would. 

Bucky still wasn’t sure if he was elated by the idea or terrified of it. 

Perhaps a bit of both. 

When Bucky let himself into his apartment, he instinctively knew to reach down and swoop Braggi up into his arms. This cat, he had concluded, was more like a dog than any cat he had ever encountered in his lifetime. It waited for him by the door like a golden retriever waiting for it’s master after a long, hard days work. It preferred sprawling on the bed, taking up more than half of it, unlike the others of the cat species that curled into a tight ball somewhere hidden. It also ate almost as much as Bucky did, which was probably why it looked bigger today. 

“About thirty pounds…” Bucky whispered, testing the weight of the purring kitten in his prosthetic arm. 

Once the door was firmly shut behind him, he placed Braggi on the kitchen counter, ruffled between his two fluffy ears, and shuffled away for an after run-shower. 

Entering the bedroom, he stalked over to the closet door, tossing it open without a care in the world only to be assaulted with a distinct crunching sound beneath his sneakers as he stepped into the walk in. 

“Huh?” His eyes squinted down at the carpet. 

The floor of his closet seemed to be sprinkled with leaves.

He crouched down, taking a semi-dry leaf between his fingertips, bringing it closer to his face for a thorough examination. Bucky turned the offending foliage this way and that, swirling the stem between his thumb and forefinger, watching the leaf twirl with each twist. 

It was most certainly a leaf, he determined. Though its origins he could not place. The leaves shape was close to that of an oak leaf, but longer, pointier in places and broader at the base. 

Bucky let the leaf fall from his hand. It swayed downwards like a feather caught in a draft before finally settling against the beige carpet where he found it. 

“Weird.”

\----- 

“Camp” was really just a metaphor for where they would lay down during the night time hours, barely sleeping. There were no tents or campfires, s’mores or songs like Darcy was use to from her childhood. It was barely a clearing considering she had to do most of the actual _clearing_. Though what it lacked for in woodland furnishings and merriment, it made up for in safety.

Her godly companion had weaved a web of glowing gold around them, crisscrossing at all angles from tree limb to rocky ledge like an overgrown spider web. The magic fizzled from time to time, sparking when an unlucky insect would cross it’s path. It burned bright against the night sky. 

The majority of the night, Darcy amused herself by flicking stray pebbles upward from her spot flat on her back into the golden net of magic, watching as the rock made contact and burst into an impressive array of sparks, dust and shimmering nothingness. 

“What happens if I have to get up to pee, Broki?” she asked suddenly after the twenty-fourth rock was vaporized into oblivion. She rolled over twice until her left arm came into contact with Loki’s form. 

“You will die.” his voice echoed bluntly in her mind. 

Darcy huffed. “Not very hospitable of you, dude. Also not very incognito, I might add. We’re pretty much lit up like Christmas out here.” 

Her mind wandered. Was it Christmas time at home?

“We are not trying to hide, Darcy,” he hissed. “The Enchanted Forest at night is not hospitable in the slightest, as you would say.” Loki's voice resounded before adding, "It is past the time of your pagan Christmas on Midgard."

She rolled her eyes. “I think you’re being dramatic again. About the forest thing, and it's a shame we missed Christmas. Stark throws a great party if you must know.”

“These are not the forests of Asgard you so leisurely navigated, I assure you I am not being dramatic.”

Darcy huffed lightly, rolling to face away from him. Admittedly, she didn’t actually have to pee, thank Thor. And if push came to shove, she would be willing to admit that she was actually pretty damn tired. She hadn’t had a good nights rest since entering the forest. 

Most nights were filled with the threat of terrifying beasts right at their golden-webbed doorstep which kept Darcy wide awake, only passing into a light sleep near dawn when her eyes could start to make out what was just beyond the shadows. She knew, deep down, that Loki couldn't be lying. He wouldn't, she rationed, keep weaving up a protection web this intricate for nothing.

She sighed again, rolling back enough to catch a glimpse of Loki. He seemed fully awake, lazily leaning against a large moss covered rock, eyes glued on the stars above them. Darcy knew he hadn’t slept in days. Maybe a few moments here and there when she did, she assumed, but for the most part he was a keenly ever-awake machine. 

Loki’s eyes narrowed as if he could feel her watching. He made an irritated noise in the back of his throat, lips pushing together into a flat line behind straining black thread. Darcy exhaled slowly, rolling back onto her side.

The comforting hum of Loki’s magical web lulled her weary soul to sleep, finally.

\----- 

Darcy became acutely aware of herself immediately upon rousing. Her eyes shot open as she peeled away her cloak. It had somehow managed to mummify her in the night.

She felt extraordinary, like she had slept for hours. Judging by how high the sun was, she had. 

Loki’s barriers had long since been taken down. Darcy noted, as she stretched out her cramped muscles, that he had left her net leaning against the tree at the edge of their campsite. Next to her, on a dinner plate sized yellowed leaf, he had left her with a handful of white berries. 

Gingerly, she reached out for one, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger. Darcy regarded it closely, pressing the berry together till it finally gave with a resound pop, bright violet juices oozing out of it’s burst skin. She gasped as her nose was instantly hit with the overly sweet smell. 

“White as snow with innards running green, you’ll be buried below the greens. White as snow with innards running violet, you’ll please your palate.” she hummed. Darcy had remembered the rhythm from one of her first days in Asgard. It had been something a child had said at Thor's welcoming banquet. Odin, ungrateful asshat he was, had sat Darcy at the equivalent of "the children's table" of Asgard. Not that she minded. After pouting, and then being teased for pouting by children, whom were probably hundreds of years her senior, Darcy had rolled her eyes and given in, listening to their amusing stories and songs.

The rhythm about berries had saved her life more than once now, when hunger pangs had almost driven her to ingesting anything in her path.

Slowly, a fond smile spread across her face and she tossed the berry into her mouth. The flavor was tartly sweet, making her mouth water. She thanked Loki quietly as she finished them off, laughing to herself at his uncharacteristic kindness that she would surely make fun of. 

Smearing berry juice against her pants, Darcy grabbed her net and set out for the day’s hunt. As discussed the evening before, she ventured South today towards an old and overgrown worshipers temple while Loki went North for the Rose Hills.

\----- 

Darcy spent the better part of the afternoon skirting around the outside of the temple, slashing away at the low hanging leaves with her net before she finally caught a blur of white out of the corner of her eye.

Slowly, she turned to her left, sucking in her breath. 

Darcy did not want to scare this rabbit. Darcy needed this rabbit. In one fleeting thought, she even considered sacrificing her soul to the devil if she could just catch this damn rabbit. 

And yet, when she turned fully, squinting her eyes at the array of dark green, she saw nothing. Growling, she stomped forward, pushing her way through the trees in the direction of where she swore she saw the rabbit. 

Bursting through a particularly prickly bush, tugging at the thorns that snagged her cloak, Darcy came face to face with her rabbit. Her eyes, previously watering with rage, jumped open to full attention, trying to take in this monster of a rabbit, if it could even be called that. 

The rabbit was a behemoth, towering over here like a round, fluffy white elephant. It’s perky ears stood at attention, nearly three feet high and off it’s head. It’s beady red eyes grew frantic, giant nose twitching as it reared back at the sight of Darcy, supremely large feet thumping in panic. 

Frantically it tried to get away from her, tumbling all over itself clumsily.

A sliver of a moment passed before Darcy spun around, running as fast as her legs would carry her.

\----- 

“I think I just startled the God of Asgardian Rabbits! Shit! Loki, what the actual fuckity-fuck-fuck?!”

Loki heard her before he saw her. Darcy’s shrill rang out over the hills, carrying like a wave of annoyance directly to his finely tuned ears. He turned his attention reluctantly to the mouth of the forest as Darcy spilled out, scrambling and kicking up an unnecessary amount of dirt in her wake. 

He lost sight of her form at the foot of the Rose hills. 

Darcy was minuscule in comparison to the stalks of magenta colored blooms that covered the hills and valleys. The landscape all but swallowed her whole, the only indication that she was continuing in his direction was the trail of slightly parted, pink plant-life behind her and her curses steadily grew nearer. 

Suddenly her voice was filling his ears and she was lunging for his chest, shaking with wide eyes. “WHY ARE RABBITS SO BIG HERE HOLY SHIT!”

He laughed into her mind. “You encountered a fully grown one? I certainly hoped you had tossed your net at it!”

Darcy shook her head, blinking down at their feet where her net lay discarded. “No? It wouldn’t fit anyways?!”

“The nets are magic Darcy, anything you are swinging it at is stored away for safekeeping to be delivered to Skadi.”

She stared at him still, her mind going blank for him briefly. “Sonovabitch Loki, you couldn’t have told me that earlier?”

“I had previously not thought it was essential information, Mortal. What pray-tell have you been catching if not wildlife?”

Darcy gave the smallest of shrugged, shifting away from him. “I haven’t caught anything yet. Rabbits in this damn realm are kind of illusive or the size of a house! And I haven’t seen any other wildlife! Literally nothing!”

He reached out for her elbow. “Lead me to where you saw the adult rabbit.”

“No?!” she practically jumped. “Are you nuts? That thing was ginormous! It’s teeth were the size of my head!”

Darcy felt Loki’s familiar chuckle rumbling through her brain, vibrating her skull. “Where there is a mother rabbit there will be rabbit offspring.” He flashed her the best mischievous smile that he could considering the stitches.

She huffed, reaching down to retrieve the net. “Fine, if you say so but if Thumper comes after us, I am tossing you in it’s path first!”

Loki only shook his head, twirling his own net between his fingers. He descended down the hill after her lazily, keeping track of her small, bounding form as it disappeared and reappeared between the blooms. 

Darcy stopped on more than one occasion to marvel at the seemingly impossible landscape; rolling hills covered completely in a pinkish hue with soil a deep, dark violet. She plucked at the petals between her fingertips, brought whole blossoms to her face, tucked stray flowers into her thick braid as they trekked back towards the mouth of the forest where rose turned emerald green as far as they eye could see. 

She led Loki towards the ruined temple but found no sign of the giant rabbit. He only shrugged her off, leading her by the arm further into the abandoned temple. 

Climbing through the rubble and rock that obstructed the doorway, they made it within the dilapidated structure. Loki explained to her that their best luck at finding rabbits for Skadi would be to go to their hiding place, since catching them roaming the wild had not worked out in their favor. He sneered at the fact that over a week's time had passed and they were still “bumbling around this wretched forest like imbeciles.” 

Darcy breathed in the musty air of the temple's great hall. It had seen better days, she mused, notating the overgrown landscape of the temple’s interior. It reminded her of Midgard’s cathedral style churches with it’s tall glass windows and shrine to the Forest Gods in the very far back. What was once polished stone flooring, she imagined, was now compacted soil and rock, vegetation and the forest moss sprouting like wildfire from it.

Nature had all but reclaimed that was her's here. Darcy's lips parted, tongue dancing over chapped lips. Something, her mind hummed, something about this ruined, overgrown world was so beautiful, vengeful, and _wrong_. It didn't fit the light, airy brightness of the forest. The ruins told a darker story of despair. 

It left Darcy feeling unsettled and on edge. She tried to smother it though, moving away from Loki instinctively to hide her emotions from his magical senses. 

Darcy tried to focus instead on the task at hand.

She parted between two large bushes with the net, her breath hitching in her throat as she saw nestled into the moss between a litter of white, baby rabbits piled high atop each other in a deep slumber. 

From across the hall, Loki motioned for her to keep quiet as he crept forward on silent feet until he was right upon Darcy and the litter. Swiftly, he swung down with the net, encasing the sleeping rabbits. They seemed not to notice as they continued to twitch in their sleep. 

Darcy gasped as the pile of bunnies shimmered gold and into nonexistence. 

“Where did they go?” she breathed. 

Loki made the amused noise in his throat that made Darcy forever suspicious. He side stepped her question, though, leaning in till her shoulder pressed against his forearm. “Those were mere babies and will do nothing for the doubling of their population in the near future. If we hide here, however we should be able to find some recently impregnated rabbits to send.”

She quirked one shapely eyebrow at him. “Can you tell?”

He nodded slowly. “I can. Though it is safe to assume that most of the female rabbits in the forest are pregnant, the eternal springtime makes for an eternal mating season within these trees.”

Darcy snorted. “You’re fucking kidding right? It’s a giant forest of forever-banging?”

Same annoying, amused noise and almost grin. Darcy was starting to hate how much he enjoyed surprising her. “Why, yes. You put it quite so eloquently, Mortal. During the day, it is in in fact a giant forest of forever-banging.”

She couldn't believe she had just gotten Loki to say "forest of forever-banging". Oh, how the mighty have fallen, Darcy cackled. “And at night?” she teased.

He shook his head. “I should hope you would never find out.”

\----- 

“Sergeant Barnes?” FRIDAY’s voice cut through the silence of the bathroom.

Bucky’s hands stilled before pulling the towel from off of his head. “Uh yeah?”

“Agent Romanoff is requesting to be patched through” FRIDAY stated. 

“... sure?” Bucky replied slowly. 

“James” Natasha’s voice echoed through his bathroom, resounding off of the tile in an almost musical purr. Except, he knew better. Her tone made him wince visibly. She was clearly pissed.

“Natalia?” he questioned. 

“I just got back from a recon. And guess what I have found on my bed…” she asked through what sounded like gritted teeth. 

Was this a trick question, he wondered, frowning. 

There was a very short list of things Bucky was afraid of, however this question left him feeling uneasy. The answer could be a great many things when it came to Natalia, ranging from the pleasureable to nuclear weaponry, from the horrifying to the cutest of…

Oh.

No. 

“Your cat, James! It’s asleep on my bed. Please extract it immediately. You know how I feel about felines” she hissed. 

“Ten-four” he sighed.

Bucky listened for Natasha to disconnect the call before making his way to his closet. He sighed when his foot made contact with more dried leaves. Somehow his closet floor seemed to be collecting the unidentified foliage with growing ferocity over the past few days. 

He had been curious about it at first, but his gut told him it had something to do with Darcy, so he said nothing. Bucky didn’t even clean them up, simply let them continue to liter the carpet of his closet. 

Shifting his shirts, Bucky paused, eyebrows practically shooting up into his hairline.

On his closet shelf, nestled between a pair of steel-toed boots and a pair of sneakers, sat a pile of sleeping baby bunnies. 

“That’s… new?” 

Weird, very weird.

\----- 

Darcy stared, unmoving, jaw clenched, as the small fire beneath her hands crackled to life. Slowly, her lips spread into a smile. "It’s the small victories, Loki, really!” she cackled, crumbling blades of dry grass over the fire. It burst to life instantly, flames licking at her fingertips.

Loki acknowledged her with a snort, returning his attentions to weaving their nightly, golden web. She watched slack jawed, as she did everynight, as gold erupted from Loki’s palms. The gold danced around their campsite, cutting through the air with a distinct burning smell before sizzling into place as their ends attached to the intended location. 

“That never gets old” she shook her head, turning her attention back to the fire. It wasn’t as though they were in particular need of heat since the climate was holding steady at almost hellish temperatures, but tending a fire would keep her mind from wandering too far. 

Since she had step foot into the temple, she had felt off. It steadily increased despite everything she did to alleviate it. Darcy had turned to thinking about anything, anything, else besides that strange, ghostly place. 

Between the two of them, Loki and Darcy had caught five more baby rabbits in addition to the original pile, eleven mature rabbits, three of which Loki claimed were already fertilized, _and_ a stray deer. 

The last one had been more of an accident. 

To Darcy’s surprise, not everything was bigger on Asgard, as she found out when she accidentally tripped over the deer when leaving the old temple. It was fully grown, with a large set of impossibly thin antlers sprouting from it’s small head. The deer was no bigger than an Earth chihuahua, responding well to her when Darcy hoisted it up into her arms at cooed at it relentlessly. 

Darcy had carried the deer back to camp with them, signalling the end to their day of hunting. 

Now she sat, flicking twigs into their small fire as the deer curled into a tight ball to her right. Darcy had announced quickly that she was naming the deer Brian, half expecting Loki to scoff at the name and roll his eyes at her mortal ways. He had apparently missed the joke, however, because when she declared Brian to be Brian, he only nodded. 

Glancing back at Loki once more, she sighed as one finally burst of fluttering gold magic exploded from his fingertips, latching on to the farthest tree before dramatically curving over them and to the branch of another. With that, Loki settled himself against his usual boulder, leaning elegantly against the flat side, facing away from her. 

She huffed, poking at Brian, who only shifted under her darkened fingers, but made no effort to wake from his early slumber. 

“Fine then” she sighed loudly, admitting defeat. 

Darcy flopped backwards into the dirt, sprawling out to map the stars peeking out as the sky turned from molten golds and lavenders to inky blue. She was utterly proud of what they accomplished in just a short afternoon and at the same time, blatantly distressed on how long it took them to find any cursed wildlife in the entire damn forest to begin with. 

Absentmindedly, Darcy reached for the key tucked into her shirt, tugging it and the silver thread up towards her face. She fiddled with it, turning it this way and that, marveling at the way the fire reflected on the glossy white of it’s surface. Darcy squinted at it, inspecting it for any imperfections in the ivory at all, and finding of course none. 

For days, it had hung heavy on her neck, reminding her of her trials to come, as if her blackened arm wasn’t enough. 

“Where do you suppose we put it?” Darcy wondered out loud. She sat up, meeting Loki’s gaze. 

His eyes flicked back and forth for a moment, between her and the key in her hand before he hesitantly held out his hand for her, palm down.

She snorted, careful not to disturb Brian as she scooted past him in the dirt to get within reaching distance of Loki. She grasped hold of his cold fingers casually before slumping down on to the rock next to him. 

“Yes dear?” Darcy asked expectantly, batting her eyelashes dramatically just to watch him sneer as he always did. 

He seemed to be ignoring her normally irksome behavior. “The key fits into the gate of the dead city, that part should be rather self-explanatory. However, getting their is our current and main concern.” Loki sighed into her mind and the feeling of exhaustion and something close to dread bled through her like a breath of air filling her lungs. 

“Why?” she practically whispered. 

His bright green orbs fluttered closed, the only tell that his energy was waning. “That ruined city is no longer in this realm, exactly. It is attached to this world by ways of the land but getting to the gate itself means passing through a void in space, which will be a hassle in itself.” 

Darcy audibly gulped. “That doesn’t sound safe.”

Loki’s deviously amused cackle filled her, dancing on the inner walls of her skull like a ping-pong ball. “It is not” he agreed. 

She pressed forward anyways, curbing his laughter as if she had to physically push it to one side of her mind. “I know Father-One-Eye’s told you what we’re after and up until this point I’ve pieced together some stuff… but Loki? What _the hell_ are we looking for in an abandoned city full of ghosts?!”

Loki was quiet for a moment, but their contact allowed her the briefest of moments of revelation. Just a stuttering flash of silver laid before her mind’s eye before he reeled it in, containing his wayward thoughts. 

He let his head lull left in her direction, exhaling through his nose sharply. “Sæbø, the Thurmuth Sword. It was lost in the battle of Vanir, buried in the rubble of the ancient city and guarded by undead warriors.”

“I take back what I said,” she sighed. “About the void of space sounding unsafe, ‘cause that sounds even worse. What in the name of Thor does Odin even want with it? It’s just a sword! He can probably have a new one made with cherub carvings and shit!”

A light chuckle reverberated. “Indeed he can, Mortal. But I fear that the sword itself is not why he is so inclined for us to venture into the city’s depths.”

“Skadi’s warning?” she asked instantly. The Mountain Goddess’s words had struck with both of them it seemed. 

He nodded. 

They sat for what seemed like an eternity with only the fizz of their magic web to cut the silence. 

For not the first time, Darcy found herself amazed at Asgard. It seemed as though the Enchanted Forest had gone to sleep for Darcy, as it did every night. Only a soft breeze blew in short spurts, as if the forest was exhaling, having held it breath in all day in anticipation. Beyond their golden halo only deep foliage stood, tall and as thick as a wall, isolating them, keeping them safe. The forest as a living entity was actively soothing her, lulling her to sleep next to Loki, Brian long gone to dreamland at her feet.

\----- 

Darcy’s eyes sprang open at the sound of a twig snapping in the distance. It was the only sound for miles and miles and it reverberated like a stark echo against the foliage.

Blinking slowly, adjusting to the golden glow in the otherwise dark night. Darcy could make out the small fire now cooling with a ghostly wisp of smoke drifting heavenward. Side eyeing Loki, she smirked smugly at his sleeping form, relaxed against the rock with one arm pillowing his head. 

She _knew_ he had been exhausted.

Shifting away from him quietly, she crawled across the dirt to where Brian stood, staring into the abyss of what was beyond their golden web. He was so close to the edge of the web that puffs of evaporation escaped off his wet, black nose from the webs heat.

“Hey buddy,” she whispered, scratching at the raised hair on Brian’s back. “What’s out there?”

Brian tilted his head from right to left, tiny hooves grounding into the soil. 

Darcy’s fingers continued to dance across the deer’s back in an attempt to calm him, but quickly faltered before stilling entirely. Darcy sucked in a hurried, worried breath as a large shadow crept forward on the ground, covering them entirely. 

Brian inched backwards as she stood, eyes squinting into the darkness. The slight hum of Loki’s web radiated warmth on her skin as she leaned unbearable close to their boundary. Any closer and she would be sure to be left with burn marks across her face. 

The figure creating the looming shadow crept closer until it too was right upon the web. The glow illuminated to Darcy the features of a woman, much like herself in physical appearance, albeit with a more ghastly quality. She was almost transparently blue, the gold glow lost in her cold skin. 

“Hi…?” Darcy gasped, her blue eyes locking onto the ghost's all white orbs. 

Darcy was unsure of if the the woman could even see her, however her voice, even as breathy as it had been, seemed to have been heard. Time seemed to still as the woman’s black lips pulled apart into a wicked, wide smile of sharpened teeth. 

Darcy’s stomach dropped as Brian skirted back behind Darcy’s legs.

The woman moved first, raising one arm to the web, hesitating as the warmth from it permeated her palm. Darcy watched as the heat of it seemed to decimate her form, wisps of evaporation coming off the woman’s hand. 

For one ignorant moment, Darcy thought she was safe inside Loki’s artfully crafted cage, but then the woman pushed her hand directly through the magic. Her flesh hissed loudly like it was being dropped into boiling water.

On the other side of the barrier the woman’s hand, now mostly bone and stray ligaments, reached out for Darcy’s face. Talon-like nails brushed against Darcy’s cheek lightly. The feeling they left in their wake was cold as ice, right down to her bones.

\----- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested, look me up on tumblr. "rlw0810", I love to chat. 


	9. A Glimmer As The Years Turn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings!   
> Hopefully all is well. <3   
> This past week, I got some pretty amazing feedback via tumblr and I think I may have literally cried tears of joy at one point. I am so over the moon at the fact that ya'll are into my story. it means so much to me to know you guys are enjoying the ride.   
> So here goes another installment ;) 

Bucky found himself sharing an elevator with Vision on Thursday morning. He shifted awkwardly, balancing a large bag of rabbit feed against his shoulder. It wasn’t as if he minded being in the company of Vision exactly... Though he wouldn't be the first to admit that their list of shared qualities was essentially made up of knowing the Avengers and occasional run ins in the lab. The similarities, essentially, ended there.

“Will you be joining in the festivities tonight?” Vision inquired, breaking their awkward silence. “Provided everything stays calm, this will be my first chance to partake in New Year’s festivities. I have heard a great deal about the topic over the past few days from Clinton.”

Bucky snorted. “Bet ya have,” he shifted the rabbit feed, shrugging. “I was gonna come up for a little bit.”

The elevator slid open to the third floor of the living complex, the floor Bucky shared with Steve, Sam, and Scott when they were off duty. He nodded a farewell towards Vision.

“Sergeant Barnes?” Vision said.

Bucky pivoted, already halfway out of the elevator, meeting Vision’s gaze. 

“We do not own rabbits here” Vision stated, blinking slowly at the bag on Bucky’s shoulder. 

“Well... you don’t, at any rate” Bucky smirked.

\----- 

Darcy pouted at her porridge, overly watered and discolored. What she would give for just one cup of coffee right now, she thought, glancing about the dirty old inn’s mess hall for any ounce of caffeinated goodness.

Though she knew better than to find any. Very few places in Asgard had anything close to coffee. The closest, she had found, was a bitter, sludge-like drink served cold at the last inn they had slept in before they left to cross the sea for Skadi’s mountain. 

At this point, she would even take the bitter sludge though. Darcy had been up the entire night after ... _the incident_.

Sinking back into the bench she glanced down at her porridge, only to find small white berries sitting atop the mush, wilting from the heat of it, violet juices seeping into the beige breakfast. 

Her eyes lifted to meet Loki’s across the table. He was relaxed onto his own bench, twirling a small, uniquely shaped knife between his fingers. 

She dug in gratefully, stirring and crushing the berries vigorously. “You know Broki, you’re becoming quite the softy!”

Loki’s eyes narrowed dramatically as he flicked his wrist, knife landing with a splash in Darcy’s breakfast. 

She shrieked in annoyance, rubbing hot berry-dyed porridge off of her face. “And sometimes you’re a giant fuckin’ asshole. You know that?”

Loki cackled softly from across before slipping out of their corner table and outside into the bright morning. 

“Well I guess that means I’m done with breakfast” she huffed, digging into her pockets for a few stray coins. 

Darcy snorted as she tossed four silver coins, the size of an American nickel, and two brass coins, the size of quarters, on the table hoping it was enough to cover her only barely salvageable breakfast. Asgardian currency never, ever made sense to her. Every province they went to; the look, feel, and value of the currency changed dramatically. The conversions were always nonsensical and some places didn’t even take currency, choosing still to barter. 

And Loki called Midgard archaic? She shook her head, snickering. 

Skipping out the door, Darcy spotted Loki untying Brian from the fence post they had left him at, directly between two giant horses. 

To be fair, they were average sized horses, but next to Brian they looked anything but average. She hadn’t thought it was possible for him to look any smaller, but putting him between the two huffing beasts, Brian appeared even more toy-sized and docile, if that was even possible. 

Once free, Brian ambled up to Darcy, kneading at her boot with his front hooves. 

“Goodness,” she chuckled, lifting him daintily and tucking him up under one arm, casually. “So needy this morning, as if we left him outside for the night or somethin’.” Darcy winked in Loki’s direction even though he all but ignored her humor. 

Loki fussed with the rope for a moment before sighing and tossing it up above his head where it caught in the air, briefly hesitating before disappearing into nothingness. 

“Show-off!” Darcy teased. “Where to now, tour guide extraordinaire?!” She approached him with her hand outstretched, waiting for him to grab it. 

As soon as Loki was settled into Darcy’s mind, he sighed. “I believe we have enough to deliver now to Skadi. And then we may begin the rest of our quest and never talk of this annoying side mission again.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” she mocked, sticking her tongue out at him quickly as they shuffled away from the inn, towards the rocky terrain of Asgard’s largest mountain range. 

“I would much rather be beaten down by your Earthly green monster once more than gallivant around that forest with you ever again” he replied flatly. 

She snorted. “So dramatic.” Looking down at Brian who cocked his head at her, she giggled. “He is dramatic, isn’t he Brian?”

The miniature deer snorted as well. 

“Brian has no idea what you’re saying mortal,” Loki explained. 

They walked in silence for a bit, no solid thoughts passing between their neural bridge despite their linked hands. Every few moments, there was a glimmer of excitement that would bubble through, but they both shrugged it off, inferring that it was Brian, somehow linked as well from his place, pressed close to Darcy's chest. 

Finally, after a few miles Loki paused before his voice grabbed her attention, “Now, are you ready to go retrieve all of our stowed away rabbits?”

“Umm,” Darcy paused. They had reached the point in the landscape where grass all but stopped sprouting and rock took over, jagged and sharp, stacking atop each other till they formed mountains. “Are you keeping our rabbits in some cave?”

“No,” he glanced back at the small mountain township, now far off into the distance. “I had only thought to put some distance between ourselves and that village. They are a moronic bunch, barely grasping the simple concept of magic…”

“Simple?” Darcy echoed, eyebrows raised. 

“They are quite on par with you humans, yes” he agreed, laughing when she huffed. “Shall we get going then?”

Darcy wondered out loud, “Portal? Intergalactic postal service?”

Loki shook his head, stepping into Darcy’s personal space. She stared at him strangely as he snaked his long arms around her small form, making sure one hand came to rest on Brian as well. 

“Oh,” she groaned as it dawned on her. “Teleporting, the worst.” 

The few times Loki had teleported her somewhere, she had hated it. It was loud with white-noise and nauseating to the senses. She always ended up distraught and, oddly, starving. 

“I have heard it helps if you hold your breath” he offered as her vision filled with swirls of blinding gold, signalling the displacement of their molecules in the cosmos.

\----- 

Bucky’s metal fingers twitched, picking at the balled up lint of Pepper’s afghan throw blanket draped on the arm of the couch. He was thankful that Tony, for once, had decided on a more intimate gathering. Typical Stark fashion meant parties with an exuberant amount of people that _knew_ Bucky even if he didn’t know them.

“Are you enjoying yourself Bucky?” Pepper asked as she artfully placed herself down next to him on the couch, setting her full glass of white wine on the coffee table with a certain finite finesse. “I’m getting too old for fancy parties,” she sighed as an afterthought. “I’m thankful we could all come to an agreement to make New Year’s low-key for our little makeshift family.”

Bucky nodded. “If you’re gettin’ too old for the fancy parties then Steve and I are way over the age limit.”

She giggled happily, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “The same could be said for Thor then, I guess.” Pepper side glanced Bucky, mouth turned to a frown. “I know you’d rather have Darcy here, I’m sorry…”

“Damnit, it’s not like that, don’t know how many times I’ve gotta tell everyone…” Bucky groaned, rolling his eyes. 

“Bucky, I’m not stupid. And I get it. When you just feel a connection and you don’t even know the other person... or worse,” she paused, “When you know them too well.” Pepper jerked her head in the direction of Tony who was busily typing away at a holographic display hovering in front of himself and Bruce, mouth chattering a million miles a minute. “Guarantee you he’s just showing Bruce the burrito he posted on Instagram for lunch today.”

Bucky’s face cracked into a small smile. “Pro’lly.”

Pepper reached out and gave his knee a good pat before swooping her drink off the coffee table and sauntering her way towards her neurotic lover. Bucky’s eyes followed her retreating form out of habit, ground-in training to focus on any movement at all till the movement stopped, or _was_ stopped. 

His eyes squinted, trying to focus on the glimmer of gold through Tony’s holographic display. His rational side, the inner James Barnes, wagered that it was something reflecting the light of Tony’s display from the other side. However, his soldier’s intuition told him it the glimmer hadn’t been there before, and was too constant to just be a reflection. 

Bucky’s eye’s widened as they tried to understand the glimmer as it grew, materializing and taking shape right in the corner of Tony and Pepper’s living room. In the same instance, the rest of the party-goers grew quiet, eyes trained on the trick of light as it slowly receded, leaving in it’s wake a worn, thinner version of Darcy Lewis and a tall, dark man with black thread stitched to his mouth. 

No one made a move. The only noise filling the suite was the sound of the crowd at Times Square counting down the New Year on the flat screen. 

_"Seven! Six! Five!"_

As Darcy stepped back from Loki’s grasp, brushing herself off, she turned and met the eyes of every soul in the room who stood stock still, weapons raised and combat ready. Her crystal blue eyes became round saucers, mouth falling open. 

_"Four! Three! Two!"_

Bucky was standing and he couldn’t for the life of him remember when it had happened. He recognized the man instantly though, from the footage of the attack on New York. Loki, Thor’s strange, power-mad brother whom Darcy was suppose to have been traveling across Asgard with. 

_"One!"_

“Holy shit!” Darcy squeaked, backing up directly into Loki’s form, one arm raised while the other clutched what looked like a fully grown, miniature deer to her chest. “Don’t shoot, shit, it’s me! Darcy?!”

“We know, we’re not aiming at you Darce” Tony said, eye’s narrowed on Loki, his gauntlet poised and ready, having emerged from under his jacket sleeve the instant their forms had solidified in this world, palm glowing a menacing white. 

“What, him?!” Darcy huffed. “Don’t you dare, he’s fine!” She elbowed him once, looking up to him.

Loki’s eyes ticked downward to the mortal pressed up against his front, defending him, before he rolled his eyes dramatically and raised both hands. 

Thor, who was near the back of the room by the television with Jane, the only two who didn’t seem ready to rip the newcomers to shreds, sighed. “Friends, please. I implore you to listen to fair Lady Darcy, as I have so forth told. Loki is not going to hurt anyone,” he paused, sauntering forward. “If they are here, they are here for aid in their quest. Is that right to presume, brother?” 

Thor laid one giant hand on his brothers tense shoulder, allowing Loki limited entrance to his consciousness. 

“We are merely here to fetch what we had been storing away” Loki told him. 

Darcy twitched, having head Loki’s words at well since she was still pressed against him. “Here, really dude?” she asked out loud, earning her strange looks from across the room. 

Thor’s laugh boomed throughout the room, much to everyone else’s added confusion. 

“If this is a joke, it isn’t very funny” Clint hissed. He had a perfect shot of Loki’s head lined up from his place in the kitchen, shoulder muscles twitching from holding the bow steady without release. 

“Nay, this is not a joke!” Thor beamed. “My brother and Lady Darcy are here only to retrieve the Asgardian creatures they have been storing in our complex!” He winked down to Darcy, “I had wondered when you would come back for them!”

“Wait,” Tony lowered his arm. “Wait, what Asgardian creatures? Another one?! What kind of creatures exactly and what the hell are you carrying Lewis!? Did _he_ shrink a deer?!”

“You mean the rabbits?” Bucky asked quietly, re-holstering his dagger to his boot. 

Vision hummed from behind him. “You do have rabbits then.”

Darcy shifted the deer in her arms, ignoring Bucky and Vision’s side conversation entirely. “Tony, he’s not shrunk, his name is Brian and he is totally fully grown!”

“Wait! What the hell happened to your arm?!” Jane shrieked, crossing the room to envelope her best friend, effectively blocking everyone else’s view of the shorter brunette. 

“Nothing?!” Darcy gasped, wrenching her blackened arm from Jane’s grip to tuck behind her back. 

Brian leap from Darcy’s arms, crossing the room in a spirited trot, head held high and swinging at his new surroundings. Bucky’s glance followed the little creature, amused, before snapping back to the scene unfolding. 

Loki shrunk back next to Thor, allowing Jane to practically wrestle Darcy to the floor, attempting to no avail to get Darcy to reveal her arm. 

“Darcy Lewis you show me your arm right now so help me God!” Jane snapped, throwing her entire weight into Darcy, toppling over the smaller girl. 

Darcy scooted backwards on her rear quickly, taking Jane with her till her back was pressed against the wall, right arm in question still firmly clasped behind her. “Woman, control yourself!” Her head whipped in Thor’s direction. “Get her off me Thor, please?!”

Thor chuckled lightly before reaching down to lift his lover off of Darcy. Jane wiggled, putting up quite the fight against the Thunder God which only made Thor smile more brightly, placing her down next to him with one strong arm wrapped protectively around her, rendering her immobile. 

“Okay stop it right now!”Pepper snapped, shoving her wine glass into Tony’s hand hurriedly, stepping closer to the center of the living room. “Darcy, what is going on?”

“Umm…” Darcy began, nerves bubbling. “I think Loki hid our rabbits here?”

Pepper sighed, kneeling in front of where Darcy sat. “You can stand up now, Darcy, you’re okay. Are you hurt?” she asked, offering Darcy her well-manicured hand to grasp onto. Cherry red nails sparkled in the artificial light of the apartment.

Darcy took Pepper’s hand and allowed the slender woman to haul her to her feet. “I’m fine, thanks. I’m sorry if we scared everyone,” she stated, looking across the room at all the weary Avengers and friends. “We didn’t mean to, well… Loki may have meant to, but not in a bad way.” She shrugged. “He’s kind of a dick in the best way?”

From behind her, Loki snorted loudly, shaking his head while Thor once again dissolved into a fit of giggles. 

‘Okay, well,” Pepper exhaled. “I still feel like I’m a few steps behind here. Why… why are you with Loki?”

Tony coughed. “Um. My fault? Sorry Pep, you’ve been pretty busy. I forgot to tell you that she’s been M.I.A. over the rainbow, following the yellow brick road with the brainwashed Wicked Warlock of the West over there.”

“Hey!” Darcy whined. “Ya’ll trust Bucky! And Clint! And they were both brainwashed. I thought we had a pretty freakin’ ‘laxed policy on previously shafted in the head individuals huh?!”

“That’s no way to refer to your fiance” Natasha teased quietly. She gently reached out to Clint, lowering his bow slowly.

Steve, who had been strangely silent and calculating since Darcy and Loki had materialized, grunted, slapping his palm against the side of his face. 

“Huh?” Darcy tilted her head, watching Steve as his shoulders shook with mirth. 

“The… cat?” Bucky offered shyly. 

Her eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “Braggi! How is he? Do you guys get along? Has he missed me?” Darcy was practically bouncing on her toes with excitement as her questions tumbled forward out of her mouth. 

“He’s fine” Bucky said, a small smile forming. “Gigantic,” he added. 

“Can we focus?!” Jane interjected from her place, still locked under Thor’s strong arm. “I want to know what happened to your arm, please?”

Darcy sighed shakily, looking around the room once more. “Fine… don’t freak out okay?” she asked, shaking her head directly at Jane first, followed by the others. 

Everyone in the room nodded mutely and then watched in horror as Darcy withdrew her arm from behind her back, showcasing the ashen colored skin from the fingertips, gently fading away to the paleness of her own complexion after the elbow. 

The cacophony of voices gasping and swearing made her wince. 

“We’re… we’re fixing it? That’s why we need the rabbits back?” Darcy murmured, pulling her wine colored cloak tighter to cover her arms self-consciously. 

Tony threw up both his hands in defeat, white wine sloshing in Pepper’s glass sloppily. “What rabbits?! We don’t have any rabbits on this property! Darcy, for the love of God, stop drinking the kool-aid Loki gives you! If you’re seeing bunny rabbits everywhere, whatever, but keep it up and you’ll be one bad acid trip away from attempting world domination or worse-”

“-Actually, Mr. Stark. I believe James has the rabbits that Darcy and her Asgardian friend seek” Vision interjected. 

Tony blinked in surprise. “Come again Pinky-Smalls?”

“I have thirty-one rabbits living in my closet” Bucky explained calmly.

Steve groaned, flopping down onto the couch to cradle his face in his large hands. “I can’t take much more of this...” he muttered.

\----- 

“Happy New Years,” Darcy muttered, shifting quietly on the couch away from a sleeping Jane. “Sorry Loki and I sort of ruined the party…”

The operation of simply swooping in to retrieve their wildlife and returning to Asgard undetected had been foiled completely once everyone has calmed down. 

Darcy had found herself thrown into the center of the room, being verbally bombarded with question after question about what she had been doing up their for the past year. She answered inquiries about magic, adventure, and her pal mischief, all the while her eyes sparkled with excitement and wonder. 

Darcy told the story of Skadi, her promise, her binding, having to reiterate twice to Clint that "yes, she really had skis for feet and a quiver full of icicles she shot as arrows" and "no, you can’t have any." 

She sighed when Wanda had fiddled with her damaged hand, rolled her eyes with Tony pestered her about her overuse of “vacation time”, and pretended not to notice when Thor and Loki slipped away, undoubtedly to mumble about intergalactic royal affairs. 

Slowly, as the minutes of the new year trickled into hours, one by one their friends started to dissipate around them. Each gave Darcy a longer goodbye then she deemed necessary, hugging tightly and wishing her well until it was just Darcy and a sleeping Jane left on the couch, Steve and Bucky opposite to them. 

“It’s okay,” Steve sighed softly. “It’s never a quiet moment around here anyways.”

Darcy nodded. “Still, I can’t believe it’s already been another year. Time works so differently on Asgard…”

“S’relative…” Jane murmured, turning over to be face down on the couch. 

“Sure thing Janey” Darcy smiled, petting the other woman's head softly. “Hey, can I see my cat?” She added quietly. 

Bucky’s spine stiffened, much like a feline, at the mention of Braggi, a topic everyone has steered clear of earlier in the evening. Thankfully. 

“And on that note…” Steve groaned, hauling his broad frame up and off the couch, “I am off to bed. Miss Lewis, always a pleasure.”

He stuck out his hand for her but she bypassed it, settling into his arms. “Cap’n Underpants, always a pleasure as well” she winked, pulling away to turn back to Bucky. “Now stop holding my cat hostage and lemme at the furball, I’ve missed him!” Darcy made mock grabby hands at him. 

Steve’s retreating form huffed in amusement as he slipped into the elevator to head to the ground floor.

“Should we just leave her there?” Bucky whispered, motioning to Jane, whom was still face down on Tony and Pepper’s white leather sofa, snoring up a surprising storm for a woman her size. 

Darcy waved him off. “ She’ll be fine. Thor and Broki aren’t back from their brotherly bonding session yet anyways, so we’ve got time,” she stopped, gasping quietly. “I’m not running your sleep cycle am I? Oh balls, our sleep cycles are all wonky as it is. When we left Asgard it was morning so-”

“-It’s fine Darce, really” he reassured, metal hand moving as if it had a life of it’s own, coming to rest on her slim shoulder. It registered for him less warmth from her than previously, undoubtedly from lack of nutrition. “Anyways,” he sighed, more to his arm’s assaulting data than to her, “Let’s go find Brag, he should be in my apartment, if that’s okay?”

She shrugged shyly. “Sure, cute boy asks me back to his place even though I’m covered in Asgardian clay? Not complaining here.”

He could only cough in reply, tapping the button to call the elevator back for them.

\----- 

Darcy had heard about Bucky’s apartment in the past, mostly from Thor who had taken it upon himself to familiarize himself with everyone’s living quarters over the past few years.

“Cultural differences” Jane had once said, shrugging when they found Thor napping on Natasha’s couch. 

Thor had said that in the beginning Bucky had not unpacked for months, that he had been waiting quietly for his world to implode once again. But once he realized it wouldn’t, and the years went by, Thor reported that Bucky’s personality had all but exploded. 

Exploding, being a severe understatement, Darcy notice. 

She felt her jaw starting to hang open unattractively, eyes dancing over every surface of Bucky’s apartment from her lingering spot in the doorway. She barely registered Braggi, weaving himself against her legs, as she was so entranced by Bucky’s apartment. 

He was, without a doubt, messier than Jane. 

“Umm,” he groaned, kicking a stray t-shirt under the couch. “Sorry ‘bout all this…”

Darcy snapped her mouth shut, forcing her lips to pull into a smile. “Totally fine, not a big deal at all.” She reached down to pull Braggi into her arms, rubbing her face affectionately into Braggi’s fur. 

He mewled excitedly. 

“He’s happy to see you” Bucky coughed. 

Darcy beamed, bouncing Braggi in her arms like the small, furry baby he was. “And I’m happy to see him. Aw, shit, but he is getting bigger? Holy actual shit dude, what are you feeding my cat?”

Bucky blinked slowly. “So far, sushi mostly. Cinnamon Toast Crunch yesterday morning, and Steve’s left shoelace.”

Darcy snorted, kicking the door shut as softly as she could. “Sounds about right actually. You seem like such a fitting pet-parent. Good on me for picking you then huh stud?” 

She sent a wink his way that made his ears heat up pink. Bucky hoped it was still dim enough in his apartment that she couldn’t tell. 

He shrank back, subtly attempting to tidy up his living room while she cooed at Braggi, rocking back and forth with him. Bucky watched her out of the corner of his eye as he slid an empty pizza box behind the television. 

He looked away for a moment to replace the coffee pot that was had found a new home on top of a bookshelf, and heard her soft footsteps moving from the tile of the foyer to the carpet of the living room. He turned as she sank down on his sofa, Braggi jumping from her arms and onto the coffee table.

The coffee table vibrated under Braggi’s weight.

“Stop cleaning and some sit with me dude!” Darcy laughed, slapping the black leather of the seat next to her. “I think I missed you a lil’ and I want to show you how much!”

Bucky _knew_ that at one point in time he had been good at this. Women. Women and their curvy forms, silky hair, and shy smiles. Long ago, he would have been in control of this situation, charming his way directly up a skirt, but now? Bucky could feel the air leaving his lungs like a quickly deflating balloon, a strangled noise escaping his mouth before he could stop it.

She only laughed harder. “Bucky, stop, seriously, just come here!”

He sank down next her slowly, his added weight on the cushions pulling her form towards his unintentionally.

Bucky murmured an apology but found his words were cut off when Darcy’s lips enveloped his, firmly crushing and warm, her small fingers winding into his hair roughly. He was instantly hypersensitive and aware of her; her fingertips still cool from their walk, the slight tickle of her eyelashes against his cheek, the faintly tart taste of berries...

Once upon a time, Bucky would be closing his eyes, leaning in like she was, pulling her close like she was, but instead his eyes were blown wide as saucers. His mind reeled into overdrive, fumbling to take hold of the situation.

Darcy pulled back a small amount, pink tongue darting out to lick at his top lip quickly. “You should probably kiss me back, dork.”

“Right,” he let out a breathy laugh. “Sorry, new to this-”

“-Just in this century Buckster.” She teased, dipping forward again. 

Darcy wound her arms around Bucky’s neck, pressing her small form up and against him, molding her to him. 

Bucky’s mind sparked to life, finally, crushing his mouth against her’s with overdue force and enthusiasm. 

She squeaked and barked out a laugh when he playfully shoved her backwards on to the sofa, metal hand gripping her thigh to pull her closer, slotting his hips in between hers. 

The leather creaked beneath them. 

His lips smiled against hers, teeth clacking together softly before he opened his mouth to nipping teeth. Bucky groaned softly when she took immediate advantage, her daring tongue running across the roof of his mouth lightly. 

“Aw you missed me too…” she moaned, arching her back to him. Darcy relished the feel of her full breasts pressing against his firm chest, hips pivoting against his jeans in the desperate need to find more friction this instant. 

“I di- Damnit!” He hissed, pulling his head back from her. He felt like he was resurfacing from beneath the ocean, gasping for air while his brain still swam, wanting to go deeper into the unknown depths that was Darcy Lewis. “Wait, stop, Darcy, this is going _way too well_ way too fast-”

“-shut up!” Her swollen lips pouted. “Put your face back here right now. We can talk later!”

Bucky grunted, sitting up clumsily. 

Darcy followed, spilling into his lap, knees bracketing his thighs suggestively. She reached up, cupping his face into her hands, barely registering the slight prickle and pressure of his scruffy, three day old beard against the palm of her dead hand. “Bucky, are you okay? Do you not want-”

“No,” he said too quickly, instantly regretting it as her mouth fell open. “Yes, no, this yes! We have to talk though, the cat!”

She eyed him suspiciously before tossing a glance over her shoulder to Braggi, still perched on the coffee table, tail flicking happily behind his pronounced fluff. “I don’t think I’m following, what’s up with Brags?”

“We _have_ to talk about this Darcy. I said I wanted to take you out when you got back, but I don’t know how I feel about marriage,” he sighed, hating his moral compass for picking this very situation to surface. Years of murder and espionage be damned, now _would_ be the ideal time to start giving a rat’s ass about a beautiful woman and soft feelings. He was a damned moron, that was for sure.

“Marriage?!” Darcy croaked, her shrill voice stirring Bucky from his internal monologue. “What are you talking about?!”

“The cat?” Bucky sputtered, trading glances between Darcy’s confused face and Braggi’s amused eyes. “Thor! Thor said somethin’ ‘bout Asgardian tradition and that we’re engaged now if you decided to reside there or somethin’ but if not then no? I… really don’t know but we have to figure this out before this gets out of hand-”

Warmth in the form of Darcy’s body left his as she sprang up, nearly tripping over his legs. She succeeded in knocking over the coffee table, sending Braggi leaping across the room for safer, higher ground. 

Darcy groped blindly for him in the dim light as he helped her back up and onto the sofa, in a more appropriate placement next to him. 

“Fucking christ, I am going to kill him,” she growled behind clenched teeth, fisting her chocolate colored curls in frustration. “I can’t believe- fucking Loki _knew_ , he had to of known, that fucking shit. They are both dead to me! Giant fucking dead cock blocks, I can’t believe- I have to find them, Bucky come on!” 

Darcy jumped up to her feet again, grabbing his metal hand. 

He hesitated, torn between dragging her back down onto the couch to forget talking all together, or following her in her sudden, unyielding quest to demolish Thor and Loki. Bucky’s decision, however, was decided for him when she threw him a glance over her slim shoulder, big blue eyes pouting for his help.

Bucky Barnes could never resist a damsel in distress.

\----- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr!  
> "rlw0810" there as well.   
> I love to chat, and will probably force some friendship on you.   
> Sorry, not sorry. :p


	10. The Jokesters Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy there friends. :)  
> Thanks for all the kind words on the previous chapter.   
> Here's our next installment. It's a bit on the short side, hopefully you don't mind.   
> We're just settin' up for something reeeeeeal good. 

Thor’s hand felt heavy to Loki as it rested so nonchalantly on his shoulder, pressing down with the metaphorical weight of trust and determination. He found himself letting his eyes wander to it even while his mind continued to ramble on. 

“Sæbø, the Thurmuth Sword,” Thor hummed in agreement, scratching through his beard thoughtfully with his free hand. “I remember it well. Are you sure brother, that the Allfather has sent you and and fair Lady Darcy to retrieve this relic?”

Loki’s jaw ticked in annoyance. “Yes, Thor.” his voice hissed. “I believe Father intends to use the sword to his advantage, as there is not a chance in all the Nine Realms that she would ever render the ability to draw it. This, I assume, is how Father will keep her and any other mortal, henceforth from crossing over and into Asgard.”

Loki watched as his brother sat still for far too long, processing in a way that only irked him so. 

“I do not doubt that the Allfather has intentions of keeping Lady Darcy and the rest of Midgard confined to this realm permanently, however, as it is Sæbø, the Thurmuth Sword, that he has sent you to retrieve… I do not believe that his intentions are to attempt for Lady Darcy to fail in unsheathing it” Thor explained, slowly. 

Loki’s eyes narrowed in a mixture of scrutiny and disbelief. “What in the name of Frigga are you insinuating?”

Thor sighed, turning away from him brother’s face and up towards the heavens where starlight flickered in an ink blue sky. “It is by the grace of God that you shall even unearth Sæbø, the Thurmuth Sword,” he murmured. “I watched that city fall, and I witnessed it’s very last defense. Sæbø, the Thurmuth Sword, is buried with the dead, never to be seen again. The Allfather all but banished that city and the route to it will pass you directly through hellfire.” Thor turned back to his brother, whom for once was giving him the utmost attention, eyes alive with wonder. “Shall you make it through, and to the gates of the city, what you should find guarding should displease you greatly.”

Loki blinked back the confusion, readying himself to dig further into Thor’s memory of the battle that demolished the city, but his thoughts were rudely interrupted by the last voice in all of Midgard that Loki would have wanted to have heard. 

“BROKI YOU SON OF A FUCKING ASSWIPE I WILL END YOU!” Darcy’s voice carried from across the courtyard. 

He groaned, eyes squinting to bring her into clear view as she sprinted closer and closer to them. Hot on her heels was the metal armed man from her memories that Loki had grown so accustomed to seeing. “Am I ever to escape this torture?” He wondered. 

Thor chuckled at the thought, clapping his shoulder just a bit too hard for his liking. “Nay, Loki. She is your burden to bear.”

“You actual fucking shit! You _literally_ twat!” Darcy huffed, lunging for Loki.

He let her, only mildly batting her hands away as she swatted at him, full force. Darcy tried, going for any unblocked area that she saw but Loki seemed unshaken by it all, amused even as she grew more frantic and less calculating. 

“Damnit, stand the fuck up and lemme kick your ass properly you douchecanoe!” She growled, going for his hair next. It was, as usual, a mess of inky black strands; an easy target to Darcy's fury-filled eyes. 

Loki’s laugh rumbled in his chest but he made no motion to stand, instead letting Darcy continue to paw at him like an angry kitten. He felt her, after a few more short spurts, grow less persistent in her jabs. 

“Weak mortal,” he thought, amused, as he stood abruptly, towering over Darcy. Swiftly he shoved her backwards and into Bucky, who wrapped a protective arm across her front. 

“You!” She ground out, trying to squirm from Bucky’s grip. “You have so much explaining to do! I can’t believe you!”

Bucky didn’t know whether to let her go or not. His soldier’s instinct smothered the idea of Thor being a threat years ago, however Loki was new to all of his senses. He was an unpredictable threat even if Thor and Darcy _seemed_ to trust him. 

He made his, mostly, involuntary choice, tightening his arm around her waist and pulling her back flesh to his front. He bit his bottom lip, attempting to ignore the way her ass pressed into him. "Shoulda just kept her on the couch" he thought bitterly. 

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you!” Darcy hissed, wagging one blackened finger at Thor. 

“She didn’t know about any of it, did she?” Bucky asked flatly, locking eyes with the blonde.

Thor smiled sheepishly, glancing back at Loki. “It was announced-”

“-A split second before your technicolor dreamscape hammer transportation swallowed you up!” Darcy wailed, leaping for Thor next. Bucky’s strong arm didn’t budge in the slightest, cause her to tip forward, arms flailing, small feet kicking, as he balanced her before forcing her feet to touch the ground again. 

“Announced none the less on Asgardian soil,” Thor proclaimed. “What verdict have you come to?”

“None!” She snapped. “I want answers first, starting with Braggi! What is the actual fucking deal here?”

Bucky cleared his throat, looking down at her. “Apparently, cats are given as bride’s gifts in Asgard. Thor claimed you were giving me Braggi as… “ he paused, shifting his eyes away and towards the ground. “As a proclamation of love… I guess?”

Darcy exhaled, feeling her whole body go limp against him. “Awwshit…” she sighed. “I definitely like you, Buckaroo, but I don’t even know you that well so I can’t say I’m ready to get married _either_.”

“Thank God” he breathed, slumping forward to rest his forehead of the crown of her soft curls. 

She huffed. “Okay but that being said, why the hell would you go poking around in my romantic life?!” Darcy set a hard glare on Loki. “I know why you would, I guess. Cause you’re a giant ass that was tired of my bitching but, Thor?! Really dude?! I thought we had a bromance!?”

“ I do not know what the means, Lady Darcy, for this I apologize. But I implore you to understand... It is a good match,” Thor said simply. “Loki and I are accustomed to being more sensitive to shifts in auras, as I do not believe those of Midgard can even sense them-”

“-Nope, auras are crap.” Bucky confirmed hastily, wanting to see where Thor was going to take this ridiculous speech. He remembered the fortune tellers from his day and age, advertising a penny a fortune at the carnivals booths, spewing a mouthful of nonsense. 

“Well,” he concluded. “It was clear to me that James’s aura had shifted to the colors of a rich fire. Lady Darcy’s as well, though I did not bridge the connection to the two of you early on, looking back, the timing does makes sense as James’s colors bloomed after I took fair Jane and Lady Darcy to Asgard.”

“What?” She squeaked, “Like we’re meant to be or somethin’?”

He chuckled. “Nay, there are no such guarantees in any of the realms. Your future is yours, and yours alone. However, the match has been proven good, as Braggi, the seventy-second son of Lord Byron, has continued to grow.”

“Because of all the cinnamon toast crunch!” Darcy laughed. 

Once again, Bucky shifted uncomfortably. “He’s s’pose to grow the stronger our… feelings get…”

Darcy gaped at Bucky for a moment before turning back to Thor. “You’re shitting me, like as the heart goes fonder crap? Just how big?!”

Thor only shrugged in reply. 

Loki seemed completely uninterested in their frivolous conversation, pacing back and forth out of the corner of Bucky’s skillfully watchful eyes. 

Bucky turned his attention to Loki fully when Loki paused mid-step and vanished, reappearing inches before he and Darcy. His hand jutted out to grasp Darcy’s arm and Bucky’s eyes widened at the intense sensation of _not being alone_ in his own mind. 

“We must retrieve our game and move on, Goddess Skadi is waiting.” Loki’s voice stated. He drew back then, sensing Bucky’s severe, rational fear. 

Darcy sighed and nodded, untangling herself from Bucky’s arms. He didn’t fight her, or hold on, simply unwrapping himself from her, eyes unwavering and seething into Loki's green orbs. 

“You get use to it,” Darcy murmured, stroking his bicep once. “He means well, I promise…”

\----- 

“They’re really in your closet!” Darcy laughed when Bucky had lead them back to his apartment and into his bedroom.

“Not the way I wanted to show you my room…” he muttered so only she could hear, he hoped at any rate. 

She snickered again, leaning forward to peer into the dark closet. When she flicked on the light, she couldn’t help but laugh out loud. White bunnies of varying sizes were bouncing around between Bucky’s clothes. Some were munching on the bag of rabbit feed that was busted open by the middle on the floor. Others slept, nestled in his shoes, or simply sitting in one of the many piles of clothes, noses twitching with delight. 

“You never thought to report why rabbits were invading your closet?” She wondered out loud. 

Bucky shrugged. “Nah, knew it had to be you doing something magical from up there.”

She smiled softly, extending up on her tiptoes to place a chaste kiss on his lips. “Thanks for being supportive, I guess. Just how much _weird_ are you willing to put up with?”

Another shrug, this one a little less pronounced. “S’much as you want?”

Darcy smiled more brightly. “Good… this could work. Dating, sorta. Super long distance, intergalactic dating?”

Thor beamed, bobbing his head up and down in agreement. “Indeed it can. You shall’nt be gone much longer!”

“I don’t know how true that is Thor, I’m actually pretty worried about what your dumb dad is sending us to get…” she sighed, leaning into Bucky. He hugged her to him without so much as a second thought. 

Thor nodded again, looking to Loki. “You should fear not, Loki will not let harm come to you. This I know.”

Darcy smirked into Bucky’s henley. “Yeah, I know.” She pulled back, looking to Loki as well. “Time to go I guess, if you have any idea on how you’re going to get all those rabbits out of this world?”

Loki had long since grown unaccustomed to having so many eyes on him. He shifted and nodded briefly before sauntering into Bucky’s closet. 

“Okay, I guess he has a plan…” Darcy murmured, looking up at Bucky. “Take care of Brags for me? And yourself?”

He nodded slowly. 

“And… I guess I’ll see you soon?” 

Again, Bucky nodded slowly, dipping down to capture her plush, pink lips with his own. The berry taste has long since dissipated, leaving just the warmth that was only her. She leaned into him, little fingers grasping at the material of his shirt. 

Thor’s subtle cough is what brought them back, moments later. 

Sighing happily she stepped back from Bucky and into the closet. The door slammed shut immediately, undoubtedly from Loki’s strange magic. 

Bucky watched in amazement as golden light flooded out from the crack beneath the door, bright, brighter than the measly closet like would produce, and fleeting. 

“They are gone” Thor confirmed a moment later. 

Bucky sighed, tossing his closet door open again. He almost didn’t want to believe it were possible but his eyes told him otherwise when he was greeted to the same closet he had grown accustomed to over the years, sans rabbits. 

The only inclination that they had been their at all was the busted open bag of feed, still left on the floor.

\----- 

Darcy felt the chilling air whipping around her and heard her boots crunching in the snow long before her vision adjusted. Still seeing blown out white and spots of glittering, blurry gold, she dropped forward into the snow, flopping forward until her cheek made contact with the ice.

Groping at the snow, Darcy clumped the chilling ice in her palm before rolling onto her back, groaning. 

She felt Loki’s hand on her arm, firm and gentle. “You did not hold your breath did you?” His voice teased. 

Darcy groaned, shaking her head before shoving the fist full of snow in her mouth. The stinging cold of the snow melting on her tongue and down her throat quenched her like nothing else ever had. 

“I instructed you to do so” he informed. 

She grunted in annoyance, sitting up against his chest. “Shuddup, stop being right. Everything’s spinning and my ears are ringing like a freight train…”

Her moans must have been heard by Skadi as the ripping wind ceased immediately.

Over the next few moments, Darcy blinked furiously, white on white starting to contrast out in her field of vision. She could make out the snow topped peaked and the white sky, the furry white bodies of rabbits bouncing happily around and away, and the Goddess Skadi standing out against the forefront stunningly. 

“Hi…” Darcy winced as Loki hauled her to her feet, brushing snow off of her tenderly. 

“Greetings Darcy Lewis, God Loki” Skadi hummed, her eyes following the many rabbits scurrying about. “I see you have made good upon our bargain, for this I thank you.”

Darcy coughed, clearing her throat as she broke away from Loki, shuffling through the snow sloppily towards Skadi. Skadi’s glass skis allowed her to sit effortlessly perched on top of the fresh snow. 

“Yep!” Darcy beamed up at Skadi, waving her hands. “Got you some rabbits, I hope you like them!”

She felt pride swell in her chest as Skadi’s dark blue lips spread into a tight smile. “They do please me. Thank you, though this is more than we have agreed on initially.”

Darcy nodded enthusiastically. “That’s the best part, a ton of the female rabbits are ready to pop. So they’ll be multiplying in numbers exponentially forever. No need for me to catch them into eternity, mostly cause I won’t live longer than a wink for you…”

Skadi slowly knelt down to Darcy, her glass skis shifting the snow slightly. “You have done well, and for this I am grateful. I believe the key will lead you well and you will be worthy,” she nodded, wicked smile radiating from her cool face. “Worthy and clever, should you like to be lifted from your binding now?”

“Yes!” Darcy practically bounced. “Please and thank you!”

Darcy stiffly stuck her arm out in front of her, excited to have her arm back to normal and also oddly excited to feel Skadi’s deeply cooling magic once again.

Like previously, Skadi’s large hand enveloped her own, icy magic permeating from her palm and onto Darcy’s skin, puncturing through like searing ice directly to her bones. She gasped at the harsh sensation of ice moving through every vein and pore of her skin. 

Removing magic was apparently different from emplacing magic, Darcy deduced, as her arm throbbed. Her teeth ground together, eyes squinting at the threat of tears. She tried pulling back but found Skadi’s grip to be firmer that she predicted, the Goddess’s brow furrowed in deep concentration. 

“Sonovabitch!” She cursed, falling backwards as Skadi pulled away. 

Darcy cradled her arm to her chest, panting and out of breath, a stray tear leaking out from her left eye. 

“I apologize for causing you pain, Darcy Lewis. Lifting a bind is not nearly as easy” Skadi informed. 

Darcy nodded mutely, her mouth hanging agape as the dark black of the color receded from her elbow down, halving her palm as the black freckled into nonexistence. All was suddenly as it had been before, except her final two fingers on her right hand. The black sat unmoving on her skin, wisping down her palm into a delicate and subtle swirl on her wrist. 

“What… what happened?” She whispered, pulling her hand closer to her face. 

“Cleverness,” Skadi said darkly, “Cleverness will be your downfall though, Darcy Lewis. This is punishment, so you shall not cross me again. Do well to never forget I am a Goddess first, agreeable second. A bind is a bind, and you did not fulfill it according to our terms.”

Darcy shivered involuntarily. “Got it…”

\----- 

Tony’s eyes fluttered open when he felt Pepper shift onto her side, facing away from him. He lifted his head slowly, smiling at the head of strawberry-blonde hair on the pillow next to him.

Tony listened quietly for any hint that Pepper was awake. When he was satisfied that she wasn’t, he sat up fully, letting their silver sheets fall from his bare chest, pooling in his lap. 

The heavy haze of sleep left him slowly as he squinted at the forms on the end of their large bed. 

Tony’s head dropped to the right, brow furrowing as he realized two sets of eyes were meeting his own, one belonging to Bucky’s monstrous feline companion, the second was the miniscule deer Darcy had called Brian. 

“Uh… hi?” Tony whispered, glancing back at Pepper’s sleeping form. “Don’t wake her, with whatever… you know, noise a deer makes?”

Brian huffed quietly, shaking his antlers once before resettling his small head on his hooves. 

Braggi yawned dramatically, giant duster of a tail thumping against the bed rhythmically. 

It only took two beats for Tony’s brain to jump to life. “Actually,” he mumbled. “Friday? What noise does a deer make?”

\----- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Per usual, you can find me on tumblr.   
> "rlw0810" on there as well.   
> I always enjoy chatting so don't be shy. :)


	11. Waterway To Bridge The Centuries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely people. :)  
>  I am so sorry for the radio-silence for the past few weeks. I have been in the middle of a hurricane called "Life" and it just keeps getting crazier and crazier. There was some good; I bought a home which is taking up ALL OF MY TIME. There was also some bad; the end to a very long relationship as well as 2 of my analysts leaving my team unexpectedly. So I am basically forever at the office, then forever working on house paperwork, and etc. BUT I have finally gotten a chance to pump out this chapter. It didn't go where I wanted it to exactly. I wanted Loki and Darcy to be at their next destination already, but I am VERY CLEARLY long-winded and dragging this sucker out. I guess it's safe to say that we are off to a slow adventure, but the good stuff is coming. I promise!!! Enjoy. 

Darcy growled, louder than she probably needed to, her arms tucked up under her bosom as she paced, boots making subtle crunching noises on the snow at the foot of Skadi’s mountain. She shook her head, scowling at Loki who stood off to the side, surveying the frozen over dock. 

“Why didn’t you tell me that would happen, huh?!” She wailed, breaking her well worn, tight circle in the snow to cross the dock, snatching up his cold fingertips in her hand. 

He whipped around instantly, wide eyed. “Did you expect to trick a Goddess, mortal? You and I are not one in the same!”

The side of Darcy’s nose twitched in annoyance. “Obviously not, shithead. But I thought I was fulfilling it. Loopholes on Earth still mean you’re right, it’s a _technicality_! And now I have two dead fingers to show for it! On my dominant hand no less!”

Loki’s eyes slid closed for a moment, before opening to her with a state of calm within their depths. Steady remorse flooded over their connection like soft sea foam blanketing a shore. “I fear you are in far too deep here, mortal. Should you come out of this with only two fingers kissed by Skadi’s frostbite, you should consider yourself lucky.”

Darcy hesitated, tapping her left foot lightly against the frozen wood of the dock, a spark of spontaneity was Loki’s only warning through their connection before she was tugging Loki by his hand forward, and into a tight hug. 

“Excuse you, mortal?!” His voice hissed. 

She ignored him, snaking her arms around his middle. Darcy pressed her face to the leather of his chest, inhaling the scent of it, musk and woodsy, something she had grown so accustomed to over these last few months, years, however long it really had been. “I know you’re sorry, even if you don’t see it you know? I can feel it, so your poker-face is basically useless to me. _And_ you took me back to see Bucky, you gigantic softie!”

“Are you quite done?” He grumbled. 

“Yes,” she snickered, “Now where to from here? We’re back to our original goal now?”

“Yes,” he mimicked her, snickering himself at the prospect of finally getting closer to their end. 

Darcy pulled back to look up at him. “Our boat is in Alfhiem, how will we cross the ocean? And do _not_ say swim, Loki, or so help me Thor-”

“-Hardly. We travel South from here to the River of Crystal and the Domain of the Dark Man.” With that, Loki twisted from her grip awkwardly. 

“What?!” She cried to his back as he started his trek through the snow, “Loki you can’t be serious?! It’s like two degrees out here and South is further towards the great ice sheet! Loki?!”

He turned ever so slightly, flashing Darcy the most mischievous look he could muster through the snow flurries and pinching black thread. When her scowl was all that greeted him he shrugged it off before turning South once more and away from her judgemental eyes.

\----- 

Darcy felt her cheeks stinging pink, prickling painfully in the gusts of wind that blew off the giant Asgardian ice sheet to their East. Loki was keeping a brisk pace and she was having trouble keeping up, the tread on her boots worn and slipping on the icier patches.

She kept his back in view for as long as she could, dark green coat a beacon against the white backdrop. Even in the hours that were considered dusk, where the bright sun dropped dangerously low but never fully set, and the giant broken moon hovered closer, the blizzard did not waver and nor did Loki’s dark green coat. 

_”It is important, Darcy,” Jane began in her usually wistful manner of speaking. “To always keep in focus what is constant. Constants are constants for a reason, they should never change. Asgard has constants too, just exponentially different. And yet, again, not so different really…”_

Darcy squinted to focus on it through the blur of white. 

“Figures we would be back to this _need to know_ bullshit” she grumbled, hiking her hood up and around her face. The soft fibers smelled faintly still of home, of Bucky’s apartment, of New Year’s Eve with the Avengers. Darcy inhaled deeply, a small smile gracing her now practically blue lips. “To the dark man, he says. Cause that isn’t ominous at all!”

A shiver passed through her involuntarily as she lost sight of Loki in the white whirlwind of snow. 

Darcy’s feet stuttered in the snow, turning a tight circle in place, “No, what? Loki?! Shit!” Her hand fell instantly to her short blade at her hip. “I don’t even have a compass! Jane, damnit, you said to keep track of constants or whatever!” She growled outwardly, not wanting to run but knowing deep down, she had to. Losing Loki in this blizzard would mean death for her, without a doubt. 

So she huffed and kicked up snow, jogging forward in the direction she had last seen Loki’s shape. Minutes passed with only the roar of wind and her ragged panting, knees going wobbly from the strain of trudging through ankle deep snow. 

Suddenly green, striking and dark, flooded her vision as the flurries cleared, too close to stop. 

Darcy met Loki’s broad back with a loud smack. She shrieked, losing her footing as she tumbled into the white powder. “Oh son of a bitch!”

Cold hands threaded around her arms, pulling her up. “It amazes me how easily I can make you quicken your pace. The threat of being alone always seems to do the trick.”

Frozen lips turned up in a snarl. “Shut it, you ass. I’m not afraid to be alone, I just don’t want to die out here in a goddamn blizzard without a-”

“- A compass? I heard you wailing on about it.” He leered. 

She sighed, defeated, sagging forward into him. “Just shut up and tell me where we’re going. We woke up _I think_ yesterday morning, played around with the Avengers all night, and have spent most of the day, and now I think evening, out here next to the ice sheet! I feel like I’ve been up 24 hours!”

“Closer to 29 at this point” Loki informed her matter-of-factly. 

Darcy gawked at him. “All the more point to just stop walking ahead and for the love of all that is holy, tell me where are we going?!”

“The Domain of the Dark Man.”

She wasn’t sure if she was shaking now due to the cold, her rage, of her lack of sleep, but shaking she was. “You HAVE GOT to be kidding me Loki! ARE YOU a fortune cookie?! DO YOU ONLY SPEAK IN RIDDLES YOU MONUMENTAL SHIT!?”

“Do you require a Midgardian…Nap? I believe you call them that?”

Darcy’s brain sputtered to a halt. “Uh, what? Is that an option?”

Loki blinked. “Clearly not. I was merely inquiring as to if you needed one.”

“Nope!” She declared, breaking out into a toothy smile. “Piggy back ride to the river? Well yes, don’t mind if I do. Thanks Broki!”

He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Absolutely not.”

\----- 

It absolutely was, as Loki came to find out, when at hour 34 he trudged forward with steady vigor while Darcy snoozed quietly on his back. He had protested, righteously, but she had won by sheer force; jumping onto his back and refusing to let go. Loki had tried shaking her off, spinning her off, even trying to roll her off in the snow. But Darcy, he found, was so much more like a child than he thought originally, as his attempts were met with shrieks of laughter and glee, gleaming merriment washing over his side of the connection.

He had grimaced and given up, choosing not to point out that had she had enough energy to hop on and latch on with such vigor, she probably could have withstanding a few more miles at least. 

Just shy of a half hour, perched on Loki’s back, he felt the connection go blank. A pitch black void of nothingness, filled with no dreams or chatter, so unlike the Darcy he had come to know. His senses had halted, probing her pulse points to find out if, perhaps, she had just _died_ due to the frigid temperatures. 

His keen senses told him she was asleep, her pulse slowed to the first stages of her REM cycle. “No dreams” he wondered. “She truly must have been exhausted. Weak race…”

After the first few hours, he relaxed. The cold comforted him in a way he dared not to think so hard on. Loki attempted to keep Darcy’s body at a relatively good temperature however, but for the most part he ignored her dead weight. 

The silence that was half of her mind connected to his was so refreshing, Loki reasoned he could possibly keep her asleep for most of their journey. Perhaps when they reached the Dark Man, he could inquire about an herb or remedy from the Dark Man’s witch, to set Darcy in stasis for the remainder of their time together. The quiet, he reasoned, would keep him sane. 

At hour 36, when the blazing sun began to rise it’s graceful arc across the horizon, Loki saw their most immediate goal, the River of Crystal. It shimmered in the morning light like a roaring river bed of pure diamonds, gushing across a trench at least five miles wide. It fed from far North of them, flowing far South towards the Caves of Ages and the Domain of the Dark man. 

The river cut through the caves, creating a vast canyon, carving the stone and wearing away on eons of time. Few knew the river flowed that far. As few, if any but he and Thor had ever seen the river at all. 

They were mere children when they had first laid eyes on it. It had been an accident that he and Thor had landed there, as misinterpretation of words on Thor’s part.

\----- 

_”You told Heimdall River of Crystal, Thor, you buffoon” Loki sneered._

_Thor shrugged shyly, his armor heaving and settling sloppily out of place on his still too small shoulders. “Was that not where we were suppose to go?”_

_“Glade, Thor. Glade of Crystal” Loki sighed, squinting at the river bed that lay at their feet. Sloppy landing too, he sighed internally. It would seem as though he and Thor would never acquire the same grace as Mother when she landed in another time and space._

_“Where do you suppose we are then, Loki?” Thor wondered, heaving himself up and out of the snow._

_Loki rolled his eyes, “Clearly the River of Crystals, whereever that may be.” He toed the edge of the riverbed, if it could even be called that. There was no viscous fluid raging, but a roaring onslaught of tiny shards and shapes, glittering in the high-noon sun, rushing downriver at an alarmingly fast pace._

_“Have you ever seen a river of solid gems like this before?” Thor questioned, eyes alit with delight and wonderment._

_Loki shook his head. “I should say not. Though it is certainly not the Glade of Crystal we are suppose to be at. We should not keep Sif waiting,” he sighed. “She can be exceptionally unpleasant when displeased. Shall I call upon Heimdall?”_

_“Nay brother,” Thor grinned. “I should like to take a few shards back to Father first. He would very much like them I believe!”_

_Loki scowled, and then scowled harder to himself as his helmet slid forward yet again, for the hundredth time today. It was just a tad too big, and a tad too top heavy with the added horns that was insisted upon him. “I should say not, Thor” Loki growled, adjusting his helmet back. “Remind me when we get home to write up an enhancement so this blasted thing stops moving!”_

_Thor had not been listening. He was too busy leaning forward on all fours, face inches from the flowing shards of the river. “Shall I find a large crystal, Loki?”_

_“No?! What, heaven's no Thor. I said it was a bad idea. You are impossible!” he grunted, stomping one foot in annoyance._

_“Loki! Look!” Thor gasped, waving one hand for Loki to come closer. “A creature!”_

_Loki lunged forward, shoulder to shoulder with his brother, eyes wide in search of a creature. Thor was forever pointed out strange wildlife, as Loki enjoyed more than anything, cataloging them for future research._

_In the midst of the crystalline shards, swam a small creature with rubbery looking skin, flippers for added agility, and a hard, oval shaped shell upon it’s back, gold runes glittering from where they were engraved. It seemed completely unphased by the fact that there was no liquid to be found anywhere, bobbing along a few feet infront of them._

_“What do you suppose it is?” Thor whispered._

_“A turtle,” Loki nodded. “One of the few species that exists across the nine realms. And a rather small one at that, from the books. First I have seen in Asgard…” He pointed to it. “See the shell? And the thick skin? It can withstand anything, which is why it swims through the shards as if it were water!”_

_“Wondrous!” Thor beamed. “How do you always know?!”_

_“I read,” Loki snorted. “While you eat the dirt of the arena floor.”_

_Thor shifted, pushing his silver helmet back up and off his forehead. “I think I am getting better. I was only defeated four out of the six duels yesterday.”_

_Loki nodded slowly but said nothing. He was sure Thor would grow into his awkward height, fill out, and become a strong warrior of Asgard. He did not need to tell Thor this, inflate his already swollen ego further. Loki chose instead to pat his armor plated shoulder once, twice for good measure, and change the subject. “Shall we go now?”_

_“Nay, I think I shall still take a crystal back…”_

_“I wouldn’t-” Loki began but Thor had already plunged his hand into the river of shards, shrieking as he pulled his hand back almost instantly._

_He stared, wide eyed, at the millions of fragmented cuts, shards poking out from his skin, as blood began to trickle out of his many small punctures._

_Loki snorted. “Look, you got some precious shards. Lucky you!”_

_“Hush Loki!” Thor whined, cradling his hand to his breastplate. “It hurts like hell-fire!”_

_Loki shrugged. “I warned you not to.”_

\----- 

“You guys looked like such babies back then!” Darcy’s voice interjected his thoughts.

Loki startled, so lost in the memory, he had not noticed she had stirred. She was resting her cheek on his shoulder, vital life force relaxed and revitalized. Darcy had been viewing his memories like a movie reel, playing in her mind as they echoed in his. He grimaced at the idea. 

“Oh stop,” she huffed, sliding down from his back. “It was cute. The days when you guys got along so well. But, if that memory was any consolation on what's to come, how are we gonna cross this bitch?”

He leaned right, till her shoulder came into contact with his elbow. “We will not cross, we will ride down it south. By way of turtles.”

She laughed loudly. “What now?”

He nodded. “Wait here, mortal.”

Loki crept forward to the river bank, toeing it like he had in his memory thousands of years prior. When he reached the edge, he held out his hand, palm up. Slowly, his brow furrowed as he concentrated deeply, a round orb of glowing green started to form, small at first, like a pinprick, growing and growing as Loki’s magic surged around it till it was the size of a baseball. 

He removed his hand, and watched as the ball of magic fell, making contact with the crystalline river. The magic fizzled, crackling as the shards rammed through it, breaking it apart at the magics very binding. A brilliant hue of green spread from it’s contact point with the river, glowing before dissipating and being swallowed up entirely. 

Darcy crept forward carefully, not wanting to touch a single shard at the riverbank, hand reaching for Loki’s. “That was pretty, but what did you do?”

“I called for Skilpadde, we will have to wait for him though. He is a turtle after all, he takes forever to appear.” Loki sighed. The connection gave it away for her however, as Darcy felt the surge of fondness through their bond.

“No shit…” Darcy whispered. “Is it the same turtle from the memory?”

“He is,” Loki confirmed. “I visited him often after Thor and I’s accidental landing here. He is a wise turtle, aged now and nearly the size of a boat.”

“Nooooo shit!” Darcy laughed. “This just keeps getting better and better!” She used her free hand to wipe the tears of laughter away from her eyes. “I get to meet your childhood turtle on an adventure to the Dark Dude!”

“Man” Loki corrected. “Dark Man.”

“Loki?” Darcy questioned, head inclined in his direction. “Who the hell is the Dark Dude?”

“Man!” Loki winced. “The Dark Man’s domain is the where the bridge to the dead city lies. We must attain is blessing before passing.” He shifted slightly. “I also have a request that shall need fulfilling before we venture past his domain.”

“A request huh?” she smiled at him curiously, but her attention was quickly turned as a great, dark mass rose up from the crystalline river, shards rolling off of the mass as it grew closer, glistening in the light of the morning sun. 

“Holy shit!” Darcy gasped as she recognized the large shape as a mammoth turtle shell, dark brown and green with etched golden runes glittering. “Skilpadde!? Is that him?!” she pointed. “He’s really the size of a boat!”

Darcy shook Loki’s arm like a child, making sure he knew _just_ how enthralled she was with the mammoth turtle shell drifting towards them, parting the shards in its slow wake. 

He nodded, not attempting in the slightest to hide the feelings of glee and relief. “It is he,” he confirmed. They watched in silence and awe as Skilpadde made his gently slow trek towards their spot at the edge of the river. 

“Boy,” Darcy giggled. “You weren’t kidding about ‘em being slow huh?” She nudged Loki with her left elbow as Skilpadde’s round, green head began to rise up, great neck arching against the weight of the crystals as they fell away. 

“Do not mock, mortal.”

Darcy blinked furiously in disbelief as Skilpadde’s head reach the shoreline, rising to eye level, great neck inclined in their direction. His round eyes slowly dragged over Darcy, glossy and deep black. His beak snapped once softly, bottom jaw quivering with age. 

“Hi?” Darcy squeaked, raising one hand awkwardly. She felt Loki’s stiff elbow nudge her side. Gulping she cleared her throat. “Hello,” she amended, “Great Skillpadde.”

The behemoth tortoise’s throat hummed a laugh, deep and rumbling. Shards of crystal that had made their way up the riverbed upon Skillpadde’s docking, vibrated with his deed laugh, bouncing rhythmically in their places.

The turtle’s mouth slowly pried open, “Just Skillpadde will be fine, child.” 

“Oh… Jesus!” Darcy stumbled. “Oh you talk, yoooooou _talk_! Of course, hi? Hi!”

From beside her, Loki snorted loudly. 

“Shut up, you!” she hissed. “Anyways, um, Skillpadde? Loki and I need a lift down river to the dark dude and he thought we’d ask you cause you guys are have a Disney princess and creature relationship goin’ on…”

Darcy heard another distinct grunt from her left, but ignored it. It seemed as though Skillpadde also was ignoring Loki in this instance, the turtles large head never wavering from Darcy’s attention. 

Skillpadde nodded slowly, humming deeply. “This is agreeable. A friend to Loki is a friend to I, small Midgardian child.”

Darcy bit her lip, smiling, and nodded enthusiastically. “Yes? Yes! Great!” she bounced twice on the balls of her feet as the turtle retracted into the crystal to turn to the right and allow them access onto his giant shell. 

“Just like that?” she asked as Loki quickly took a large step from the bank of the river to the back of the shell. He looked back at her, giving her a puzzled look when she seemed to not move from her place. 

Darcy exhaled deeply before leaping from the bank and onto the turtle’s back, her boots making a small thump as she landed, arms flailing as her sense of balance shifted backwards. 

Loki’s arms jutted out to right her quickly, pulling her down to a crouched position on the turtle’s shell as Skillpadde pulled away from the bank, large flippers pushing the shards in small waves.

“Oh, yeah,” Darcy nodded, plopping back onto her butt. “Sitting is much better, never rode a turtle before!” She laughed nervously, looking up at Loki who was still crouched next to her. 

“You get use to it” he said simply. “However you should get comfortable. We will be drifting for quite some time before we reach the Domain of the Dark Man.”

“How much time?” She asked as he settled next to her. 

He groaned inwardly. “You should have saved your nap for now…”

Darcy sighed and stretched out her legs before her, leaning back on her hands to look up at the bleak white sky. From the time they boarded Skillpadde on the river, Skadi’s winter seemed to have ceased. It was as though the howling winds and snow flurries could not cross the Crystal River’s edge. Darcy could finally feel the sun’s rays defrosting her frozen cheeks.

She lost herself in the gentle rock of Skillpadde’s swimming and the sparkle of the river. Darcy wasn’t sure how much time had passed; minutes, hours, the sky didn’t change and the landscape around them never wavered. 

The next time she checked, Loki was fast asleep, sprawled across the turtle’s back with one arm flung over his face. 

“Like a grumpy kitten finally catchin’ some z’s in the rays…” she snickered softly, not wanting to wake him. Apart of her felt bad that he was constantly having to take care of her, consistently carrying her literal dead weight. Darcy knew, deep down though, that there was a soft spot somewhere inside of Loki that probably saw her as family, of some sort, the moment he found out she had blasted Thor to the ground with one zap of her taser. 

Darcy smiled fondly at the memory before gently placing her hand on Loki’s chest. It was rising and falling steadily and she wanted to see if maybe, just maybe, she could bridge a neural connection strong enough to peer into his dreamscape. 

She waited on baited breath with her hand sprawled across his leather armor and… nothing. Slowly, Darcy withdrew her hand and shifted, pulling her knees up to tuck under her tired chin. “You’re so tired your brain can’t even imagine, huh? Probably cause you spend all your time takin’ care of me Loki-doki.”

From below the current of crystals, Skillpadde must have heard her and chuckled, his deep rumbling laughter practically vibrating her directly off his shell.

\----- 

Tony had given Bucky free reign of the holotable in his workshop, waving him off without a care in the world for the million dollar piece of equipment without so much as asking what Bucky had wanted to use it for.

Thank goodness he didn’t though, Bucky sighed to himself as it projected for him files upon files of data, glowing an iridescent blue. He wasn’t in the mood to hear about how ridiculous he was being. Bucky was also thankful that Tony seemed to be completely preoccupied with fabricating something in the far corner of his domain, sparks flying in all directions from where Tony was very clearly working diligently. 

Bucky’s fingers flicked through the data mindlessly till he landed on what he was looking for; Darcy Lewis’s stats. He zipped past the useless information, scouring the file for her biochemistry, all of the genetic variants that made Darcy who she was, seamlessly transferred from raw values to the sleek 0’s and 1’s of binary that SHIELD preferred. 

He took a moment to copy over the data, bringing up another archive; the internal command center for his apartment building. 

The hototable seemed to gain a life of it’s own when suddenly red letters began to type themselves out before Bucky’s face. 

He chuckled when he read “You could have asked me to do that.” Glancing up, Bucky’s brow furrowed when he noted that Tony was still fully engrossed in whatever he was attempting to make, dremeling away at a small piece of cherry-red metal. 

“Friday?” he questioned softly. 

“Correct, Agent Barnes.” Friday’s equally soft voice replied. “If you would like for me to alert you at any time if Miss Lewis’s DNA is detected on the premises I can do so. You need only ask.”

He sighed, flicking away the files into electronic oblivion, powering down the holotable in one fail swoop. “Can ya, please?”

“It would be my pleasure, Agent Barnes.” came her reply. 

He nodded shortly and stood, rounding the table to get a closer look at what Tony was working on. Tony, like his father, was always willing to show off the latest and greatest and Bucky would be the first to admit that then and now, the Stark men tended to always manage building exactly that; _the latest and greatest everything_.

Tony stepped back as Bucky approached. He gestured at the four red cylinders standing two and two about a foot apart. They couldn’t have been more than two or three inches in diameter with only the faintest of grooves showing at the lip of the cylinders, the only indication that the layers of metal were moveable. 

“What is it?” Bucky questioned. 

Tony snickered to himself, scratching at his goatee. “Possibly the coolest thing I have made to date…” he shook his head, slapping his hand on the table twice. “Brian, buddy, you’re up!”

From across the room, the small deer that Darcy had brought home, came prancing towards them, using his surprisingly powerful back legs to launch himself from the ground to the table. Gingerly he stepped forward until each leg was encased in one of the four red cylinders. They fit with only a little room to spare. 

Bucky blinked. “You didn’t…” 

Tony beamed at Bucky like a child at Christmas as the layers of red metal started to unravel upward, folding over the deer’s small body until a moment later Brian was no longer. On the table, in red and gold shinning glory was an exact, working replica of the Iron Man suit, in the shape of a ten pound deer. The only thing left to it’s natural state were Brian’s pencil thin antlers that stuck out from the top of the suit. 

Tony giggled uncontrollably as Brian’s calm deer face appeared on the hologram to their right, a mirror image of the inside of the suits hud. Brian’s black eyes blinked slowly, heart rate and breathing filtering in on the screen. He shifted on his legs and the suit shifted with him, plates ticking together and clinking apart as they should. 

“I call him Iron Brian!” Tony declared. 

Bucky groaned. “We’ve gotta find something more productive to do with our time…”

\-----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr so we can chat.   
> "rlw0810"


	12. The Taste Of Ink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! :)  
> Sorry for the delay. With my schedule as sporadic as it has been, I don't think I will be on the weekly Thursday update routine, but never fear! I will still be updating!  
> Also, up until this point I have been sticking to a very strict map of Asgard in this story, attempting to get the directions geographical landscape mostly right, and only mildly embellished. However, I now am forced to stray because the Crystal River on the same is far too short for my liking and the Dark Man's Domain is far too small for it's functionality in my story. So, here we now finally see my own personal touch on Asgard. :)   
> In addition, this chapter has gotten away from me. If I'm being completely honest, Loki and Darcy would have been way further in their journey two chapters ago, but I couldn't help myself!  
> Hope you enjoy! 

Darcy had never felt more relaxed that she did sprawled on Skillpadde’s shell. For what seemed like forever, Loki has snoozed quietly before gently stirring. He made no inclination to speak to her, simply smiling softly before stretching back to cloud-watch overhead. 

She drifted in and out of a light slumber for what seemed like days, waking up flat on her belly and warmed thoroughly from the afternoon sun. She blinked furiously until the golden runes on Skillpadde’s shell came into focus, rolling up to meet Loki’s face. 

Darcy was surprised to find Loki still lounging with his hands linked behind his head, eyes far off and glued to the bright glue sky. The high sun flooded everything in a blinding white light, highlighting every small scar on his pale face; the deep gash long since healed into a white line on the bridge of his nose particularly prominent. Darcy shifted uncomfortably at the nagging thought that all her imperfections would suddenly be showcased. 

His eye’s flicked to her’s when she moved. 

Exhaling through her mouth dramatically, she sighed. “I feel like I’ve been sort of sleeping for days... and something tells me that’s cause I have been? And that time is getting a little wonky on this river?” 

Darcy reached out, grasping Loki’s elbow. A surge of amusement crossed over their bridge. 

“It has in fact been days,” he confirmed. “The passage of time here is so vastly different from the rest of Asgard and the other nine realms, I couldn’t even begin to calculate how long we have been afloat.”

“Why though?” she wondered out loud. 

Slowly, Loki sat up, tugging her close to point out the edge of Skadi’s land, where snow and ice met the banks of the river. Darcy’s gaze then followed Loki’s outstretched finger as he motioned her to notice the other side of the river, far off in the distance where only black rocks stood, jagged and menacing, jutting out from beneath the crystalline depths. She shrugged, looking back at him before pressing her shoulder into his chest. 

“We are on the cusps of two great, magical forces Darcy,” he explained. “Much like the way your cold and warm fronts clash against each other in your dull atmosphere on Midgard, here Skadi’s magic stretches out. The Dark Man’s magic does as well, and in the middle ground where they repel each other, we sit adrift. Skillpadde will take us down to the end of the river at his own pace because time has no power here. With no grasp on time, your body has chosen to blink away large chunks of the eternal day…”

Darcy huffed. “So then, how long have we been gone now?”

Loki shrugged shyly. “From Skadi’s mountain, a few days I imagine. From Midgard, I would assume months…”

\----- 

Steve was meticulous in everything that he did. Maybe, he wondered, if it was a personality flaw of his. Maybe, he also thought, that it was likely one too many shots to the head over the years. Either way, Steve typically wanted nothing more than complete peace and order most days.

Steve had a schedule that he followed, one that he only loosely varied from.

Every morning, Steve’s internal clock would rouse him at a quarter to 6. He would quickly tap out an invitation to run the track to Bucky and Sam. Sam would always respond within a moment, Bucky would rarely even let the message change to “read”. 

After five kilometers around the track with Sam, and sometimes Bucky, Steve would make one cup of coffee with two sugars and no cream. 

In addition to his maddeningly scheduling ways, Steve was starting to notice he liked things continually more neat and organized than before. He was finding a home for everything it seemed; from the sketchbook that sat on the left corner of the coffee table, edges mirroring the tables 90 degree angle, to his Black Widow coffee mug that always found it’s way back to the right side of the coffee maker after Steve’s one cup, washed and dried like his Ma had taught him. 

Captain America’s shield also had a forever home now. It sat proud, ready, and waiting by the door, hanging auspiciously by skillfully installed magnets on the inside of the wall thanks to Tony. 

Except today. 

Today, Steve’s shield was not hanging on the wall at waist level. 

Today, Steve’s beige foyer wall was all that greeted him, mocking him for it’s sheer lackness of red, white, and blue. 

“You have _got_ to be kidding me!”

\----- 

Steve found Bucky in the clearing on the North end of the Avenger’s facility. There was no one around him so Steve didn’t even think to approach cautiously. He simply jogged up to his friend, assuming Bucky was outside to get a smoke in before dinner.

“Buck!” he slapped the other man on the back. “You happen to have seen my shield anywhere would’ya?”

Bucky flinched. “Um, maybe?” He nodded out towards the field that lay before their feet. The grass was growing more weeds than blades these days, tall enough to graze their knees in some parts, patchy and uneven and turning the color of wheat as the summer heat sucked away all the moisture left from Spring. 

In the distance something large and brownish-grey came ambling towards them, it’s large form flattening the stalks of vegetation in it’s wake. Steve squinted, bringing Braggi into focus, happily galloping towards them with a familiar looking shield hanging from his mouth. 

Steve let out a shaky breath as Bucky’s cat skidded to a halt in front of them, dropping the shield with a distinctive metal clang against Bucky’s steel toed boots. Braggi seemed either not to notice Steve’s dismay or didn’t care in the slightest. Braggi purred loudly, pleased with himself as he stretched forward on his front legs, stretching, giant plume of a tail swishing back and forth.

“Buck…” Steve began, though it came out as more of a whine. Lord help him now, he thought, as he cradled his chin in his hand. “That-That’s not a toy! When did you even steal it from my room? I’ve been home all day!”

Bucky shrugged. “Didn’t.” He reached down, grasping the shield in his hand before frisbeeing it across the large expanse of land. Bucky’s arm whirred loudly at the burst of kinetic energy. 

Braggi took off in the same direction, bolting possibly faster than a cat the size of a small bear should. 

“He must’a gotten it somehow.” Bucky sighed. “Smart puss. Plus I’ve gotta run ‘em or else he’s awake all night and driving me nuts…”

Steve groaned, watching as Braggi once again returned, slower this time, shield dangling from his mouth. He dropped it a foot or so from where the pair stood, placed both large, front paws onto it and sank down. His fangs came to scrape against the metal as he gnawed at it like a trapped toy. 

Bucky chuckled, looking away from his best friends uncharacteristically upset face. 

“This cat is worse than Hydra…” Steve murmured.

\----- 

Darcy squinted, trying to focus on the distant horizon. The bright daylight shining off the river reflected brilliantly. It reminded her of the hot summer days of her childhood when the sun would beat down on the tar, turning the air above it into a wavering mirage.

From her vantage point she could just barely make out a fork in the river. They approached atop Skillpadde at a snail’s pace.

“Which way do we go at the fork?” she wondered out loud, tracing one of Skillpadde’s runes. 

An odd sensation within her suddenly affirmed that they would be drifting left. Darcy smiled at it, knowing it was Skillpadde’s own special magic answering her question. 

They continued on down river towards the fork for what seemed like an eternity. The gentle sway of Skillpadde could have lulled Darcy to sleep if she hadn’t already slept days away. She was wide awake now, switching between leaning over the great shell to gaze upon the sparkling bits of river, to squinting at the black shapes on the horizon. Darcy wondered on more than one occasion what the dark, looming horizon consisted of. 

Skillpadde gave her no answer as they drew closer. 

Finally, the great turtle brought them to the fork where the river split. Crystalline chunks glittered downstream to the right of the fork where Skillpadde had stilled. To the left was the mouth of another river, deep black and murky, bleeding sickeningly where it joined with the crystal river. The land to the left was charred and wasted, covered in ash and soot. 

A knot began to form in the pit of Darcy’s stomach, Loki’s words of the “Dark Man” and his “dark magic” ringing loudly in her ears. He had not been exaggerating when he told her of the dark, powerful magic this man possessed. She could feel it buzzing at the join of the two rivers, electrifying and nullifying the icy magic of Skadi’s reign, leaving the emptiness where the two magic’s met. 

Darcy dreaded what came next, blindly groping for Loki with her outstretched arms as panic slowly started to trickle in. 

“Do not be so afraid, mortal” Loki’s voice soothed as soon as she made contact with his hand. 

She clutched tightly at his hand anyways, her knuckles turning white from the strain. “I don’t like the way the air feels Loki. It’s empty and heavy at the same time, and it feels evil. Just like in the overgrown temple in the forest. Just like when that ghost lady visited. I don’t want to go there!”

“No harm will come to you, I promise” he told her calmly. 

Slowly, Darcy turned to meet him face. Her wide-eyed frantic gaze was met by his calm, serene statue, his lips pulled into a small smile, black threads pinched tightly. He was trying, she could feel it, to saturate their connection with confidence and reassurance, and Darcy was grateful. She breathed in his bravery like a drowning victim, lungs filling with oxygen for the first time in too long. 

“Okay, okay… “ she exhaled shakily. “I’m sorry, it’s fine now,” she lied.

“No, it isn’t. But I do appreciate your insistence anyways.” he chuckled. “This is as close as Skillpadde can get to the scorched lands.” Loki tugged her forward to the edge of the turtle’s shell where not even half a foot off stood the distinctive line of where shards of diamonds ended, and inky black liquid began. “We must jump.”

“I was afraid you’d say that!” Darcy groaned. “Rule number one of Summer camp Loki, never go swimming in water you can’t see clearly through! You never know what’s under there!”

“Nothing is under the surface, mortal,” he insisted. “These lands have long since died.”

She pouted. “I hate this…”

He only nodded. “I am aware, now please bid Skillpadde a farewell as we must make haste.”

Darcy stood, tight lipped, staring at Loki. She was having some slight reservations on jumping into that water, to say the least, and she was letting it show, letting it bleed through to his end of their link. She watched him, as he rolled his eyes and urged her to quicken her decision process. Loki had even gone so far as to mentally nudge her, a feeling that she felt in her gut, as if it were lurching forward. 

She groaned in annoyance. “Skillpadde, it’s been real man. I really appreciate the ride!” she called out. “Loki says we need to say goodbye now and that he’ll visit soon. That part I made up, but I’ll make him, I promise!”

Loki snorted lightly.

Darcy waited for Skillpadde to respond to her the way he had previously but instead he slowly raised his great head up and out of the river, nodded slowly at them before dipping back under the brightly reflective gems of the river. 

“I guess that’s goodbye?” she murmured, feeling Loki pull roughly on her hand. 

Darcy obliged, stepping flush next to him near the edge of the shell. Out of reflex, her fingers tightened around his. “Are we going to count to three?” she asked shyly. 

“No,” was his answer before he was moving. And she was moving too, out of fear of losing her grip to him more than anything. Loki had leap from Skillpadde’s shell and by extension so had she. 

They tumbled forward. 

In a mere millisecond the surface of the black water broke around her and Darcy was thrashing wildly as her body made contact with water; warm as bathwater. It assaulted her every sense as she frantically waved one hand, the other still firmly interlocked with Loki. Darcy kicked her feet as hard as she could, but was having trouble keeping track of which direction was up. They were sinking like rocks beneath the surface, swirling deeper and further than anticipated. 

Darcy’s lungs felt like they had caught fire, what oxygen that was left igniting to a fast burn. Her heart thudded in her rib cage and a brief thought lit up her mind like a freeway sign in the night. _“This is the end!”_ she thought dramatically. 

“No,” came Loki’s voice again, more definitive this time. 

She felt his hand pulling at hers and just like that, her head broke the surface. 

She gasped, gulping air like a woman starved, blinking moisture from her eyes. 

“Shit!” she coughed, using her free hand to wipe her hair from her face where it stuck. 

Loki bobbed in the dark water next to her, his black hair plastered to his skin, but otherwise seemingly unaffected by their current state. His bright eyes actually seemed almost amused. 

“You thought that was how you would perish?” he teased. 

Darcy coughed again, black liquid trickling down her chin. It tasted bitter and tangy. “Shut up, I hate you” she shot. 

“And I, you.” he said, the edge of his words turned up in her mind wickedly. 

Darcy rolled her eyes, feet still kicking beneath the surface as she treed water uncomfortably. “Whatever, what now Broki? I’m not fit enough to bob around this river till your next aquatic childhood bestie shows up!”

“Swim to the far bank” he instructed, releasing her hand beneath the water. 

Darcy scrambled after him as his bobbing head quickly started off for the East, where the river washed up on to ash and rock. He stayed in the lead, but not far enough to cause Darcy any kind of distress. 

“Bless him” Darcy thought fondly. She was sure he could have swam faster, but knew she wasn’t pleased with the idea of even being in the black water to begin with. 

Thankfully for Darcy, she had yet to encounter any foreign objects in the river as of yet. It was simply warm, dark waters. It felt just like the water from the seas and oceans on Midgard, thin, fluid, and a bit sticky from the salt, only it smelled faintly of something else. Every time Darcy caught a wiff she was hit with a deep wave of nostalgia, and she concentrated hard, searching her mind for what it reminded her of. 

“Ink” Loki whispered and he hoisted her up on to the bank of the river. 

Darcy collapsed onto his form and they laid motionless as the soft black waves lapped at their boots. Time seemed to trickle away with each inky roll of the tide. 

“It’s a river of ink?” she echoed, darkly.

Loki chose not to answer her. He simply blinked slowly, focusing on the sound of the small waves, Darcy’s puffs of breath, and the smell of pungent ink.

“I think I just want to lay here… for a little bit. Dry out, get my bearings straight...” she moaned, feeling the heat and humidity hit her at once. 

The climate was vastly different from across the river, Darcy could feel the heaviness of it in the air. It was like she was still in the river, drowning and spinning, pressure from all around crushing the breath right out of her.

\----- 

“This humidity is worse that Florida!” Darcy squawked, running her fingers through her once glossy brown curls. They now each stood on end, frizzing out like she had stuck all ten fingers into ten different light sockets, twenty times each.

Loki, thankfully, wasn’t looking nearly as pristine and proper as he always did. She relished the fact that his own black locks were stringy and disheveled, matted in a slight sheen of sweat. 

“And it is no less than eight thousand degrees here!” she concluded. 

He snorted, tugging her forward from their joined hands across the crumbling terrain. They had been walking for hours by this point, across a barren landscape that looked like cracked, volcanic ash.

There was no volcano, of course. Darcy had been quick to point that out. 

There was no logical explanation for the landscape and that it what irked her the most. She was expecting hot steam vents, molten lava leaking from cracks in the crust, _something_. But there was nothing. Loki reminded her, each time she asked for these Midgardian land features, that this land was of Asgard, for one, and dead, for two. 

“Dead?”

“Long dead, “ Loki confirmed. “The Dark Man is all that survives here, and believe me when I say, he prefers this barren wasteland.”

“Well… where is he?” Darcy whined, stopping in her tracks to gesture at the flat, soot covered land. “Where is he hiding ‘cause we can see for miles in all directions right now and I don’t see any dark dude!”

Loki grunted and tugged her along again. “He is beneath us.”

“Believe it when I see it!” she warned. 

Moments slipped past them that trickled to hours of wandering in silence. Darcy soon lost focus of where she was stepping, allowing Loki to tug her along as her eyes glazed over, hypnotized by the dusty grey he had smoothed out for her. The land seemed to be forever on repeat, spreading out before them bleakly. 

Darcy let her mind slip back into memories, uncaring of what Loki was witnessing through their connection. 

She thought of Jane and Thor, and how her heart ached to see them again. She played back memories of late nights in the labs, breaking off bits of junk food to throw at Jane. Darcy lost herself in memories of their time wandering Asgard’s libraries, dancing traditionally at dinner with Thor and Loki. Her heart clenched at these memories that seemed so bright and far away. How long, she wondered, had they been gone now? Time was fleeting and strange here, inconsistent when magic rubbed it the wrong way.

Darcy mind wandered to the short night she had spent on New Year’s Eve with the Avengers. She beamed at the memory of all the bright and happy faces of her friends as she spent time with them, told them all about the wonders of Asgard, and relishing in the fact that they were still holding together, strong, in one room. 

She thought about Loki, and how close they had become. 

Family, her mind echoed. In her daze, she snickered at the fact that her delusional inner monologue was starting to sound like the grumpy ass-hat, himself. 

Mostly though, Darcy thought of Bucky and his soft smiles and soft lips, and warm embraces. Darcy played back each moment a thousand times; the smell of his clothes, the soft feel of his scruff on her face, his shy glances and protective arms. She could even hear Bucky’s arm whirring to life as if he were with her. 

Or maybe, it was just the wind, she thought.

Before Darcy knew it she was abruptly halted. She caught herself, shocked. Quickly she began wiping away stray tears that had escaped her eyes without consent. 

Looking up, her eyes focused on Loki’s back. Peaking around him, Darcy’s stomach plummeted at the sight. 

Darcy stood, blinking in surprise, at the edge of a crater so deep, she could not see the bottom. It was like a black hole, a vortex where light could only illuminate for so long before it was sucked away, forever. It stood in the middle of the dried up plains like the gaping mouth of a giant beast, hanging it’s caverns open for prey to fall victim. 

 

Etched out of the rocky end of the crater were stairs, swirling the diameter of it and descending down, down, down into the dark depths, illuminated every so often by a flickering lantern that glowed an unnatural, bright purple. 

“Magic” Darcy echoed out of habit. 

“Magic, indeed” Loki confirmed, “Follow me.”

She groaned as he stepped down onto the first step, and then another, and another. 

Darcy kept close now, and was determined to stay aware as they descended. After a handful of wraps around the crater, natural light faded out of existence as the purple lanterns took over. 

“How deep will this go?” she asked slowly, almost afraid of the answer. 

Loki only shrugged, his angular face taking on an unearthly purple glow.

\----- 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for now loves! Hope you're enjoying the ride.  
> And as usual, find me on tumblr. We can chat :) 


End file.
